Power outage started taking place, straining people’s life at just before the advent of summer.
According to Power Development Board statistics, the gap estimated between power generation and the supply is now 1,250MW but direct contacts by New Age with power distribution agencies suggest that it already exceeded 2,000MW.
The power distribution agencies have been forced to shed loads for five to six hours in the capital and for 10 to 12 hours in rural areas as the difference between the demand and supply of power has started increasing rapidly from early March.
Power outages taking place in early March have raised some concerns about the commitment of the government to improve the power situation by 2011.
Waliur Rahman, a pharmaceutical businessman and resident of Mirpur, told New Age that he understood that the power situation could not be improved overnight.
‘But there is no evidence on the ground that can assure us that the power situation is going to improve by the end of this year,’ he added.
He feared that power outage would increase in the forthcoming months as the temperature increases.
According to the power board statistics, the average power generation in for a few days has been 3,800MW, with 580MW coming from quick rental plants.
A further 1,620MW of power from rental plants is due to come on stream this coming year.
A power board official told New Age on Wednesday that the addition of the rental power to the national grid could not improve the power scenario as old power plants of a combined capacity of 1,854MW were not producing power for lack of gas and technical problems.
BD Rahmatullah, a former director general of the power cell, told New Age that the 700MW of power could be obtained if the government renovated old power plants.
A Rural Electrification Board official told New Age that the situation had deteriorated in three days. ‘We cannot provide power for at least three hours for irrigation in REB’s coverage areas for lack of power allocation,’ he added.
On several occasions, the government announced to supply uninterrupted power from 11:00pm to 7:00am for irrigation and decided to switch 200MW–250MW of power from the capital to villages.
The Dhaka Power Distribution Company and the Dhaka Electric Supply Company started publishing power outage schedules on their web sites for different areas of the capital.
The DESCO managing director, Manjur Ahmed, told New Age that the power demand was increasing as the temperature started increasing rapidly in early March.
The DPDC gets around 660MW of power to meet a demand for 840MW from evening until the following morning.
Power demand in the DESCO area has now touched 500MW with a shortfall of 150MW.
Courtesy of New Age
