Industrial productions and business activities across the country were severely hit by a countrywide blackout on Saturday. A large number of the manufacturing units like readymade garment factories and textile and steel mills were shut down while many of them faced disruption in production across the country due to the outage. The banking service through ATM booths, telecommunication and internet services were also severely hit while the luxurious hotels, city shopping malls and other businesses were also faced difficulties in the blackout.
Many of the manufacturing units tried to continue production for a few hours after the blackout hit the country at around 11:30am with the national grid failure after the transmission line bringing electricity from India had tripped.
But, backup power supply of a large number of units also became ineffective after two to three hours forcing them to shut down the productions, said Bangladesh Garment Manufactures and Exporters Association leaders.
‘Many of the small and medium garment units have already been shut down because of the blackout. The large units are also struggling to remain in continuous production,’ said BGMEA president Atiqul Islam at 8:00pm.
‘If the blackout continues for few more hours, the sector will not be able to bear the fallout. There will be great harm to the industry,’ he said adding that he could not quantify the number of RMG units affected as they were continuing gathering information.
The government should have taken preparation how to handle such kind of incidents, he said.
Abdus Salam Murshedy, managing director of Envoy Group, said that they had been forced to suspend production in their factories due to the power outage.
‘We have ability to back up only four hours through generator and end of the day we have been forced to close our factories and office earlier from the scheduled time,’ he said.
Salam said if the crisis continues the manufacturing sectors would collapse and export would be hindered.
Due to production through alternative way the production cost might increase more than 20 per cent as the diesel generator is expensive and production in full swing is not possible under the generator, he added.
Bangladesh Textiles Mills Association president Jahangir Alamin said that around 600 power loom and small textile mills were shut down due to electricity crisis.
‘Only those who have gas supply are being able to continue production. Some are trying to continue with diesel-run generators but it will not be sustainable for them because of higher production cost,’ he said.
Steelmakers also reported about production disruptions.
Mostafa Hayder, director of Kharnaphuly Steel Mills Ltd, in Chittagong said that the production in the factory remained suspended fully for whole day.
Md Abdus Salam, managing director of Salam Steel Re-Rolling Mills (Pvt) Ltd, in Dhaka said that production remained halted in the factory.
It is a big setback for the business, he said.
Officials of different luxurious hotels in Dhaka such as Sonargaon and Westin said that they were continuing operations with back up power services but many parts of the hotel were in dark as the backup generators could not last long.
‘Our backup generator can run up to 24 hours if we go for full swing operation. We have reduced production at the generators to cover less area but more hours,’ said an official of the Sonargoan Hotel.
Grid failure hit hard most of the industries in Chittagong known as country’s major industrial hub, causing disruption in production on Saturday, reports New Age’s Chittagong correspondent.
‘Most of the mills and factories at our industrial belts suffered huge production loss due to the outage. It’s a major dislocation that hit our industrial belts here,’ said the president of Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mahbubul Alam.
‘The industries which mostly run on electricity, were the worst sufferer as production came to a halt after the blackout that hit across the country,’ he added.
‘Our country must have precautionary measures to tackle such a power disaster,’ he observed.
Nasiruddin Chowdhury, former first vice-president of the BGMEA, informed that the garments factories were badly affected due to the outage.
‘But few garments industries somehow operated with partial production with a backup from generators,’ he said.
The cost of production went high following use of fuel-run generators, he said.
‘However, our production was seriously hampered due to the power collapse after grid disaster,’ he added.
Chittagong Re-rolling Mills Owners Association general secretary Jafrul Islam Chowdhury said, ‘Production was suspended in our re-rolling mills here due to the outage. We depend mainly on gas and electricity.’
‘We fell in a big trouble without power after the grid failure,’ he added.
He informed that 50 rerolling mills under his association suffered huge financial loss after the grid failure.
Chittagong Power Development Board chief engineer Nazrul Islam told New Age that the whole of Chittagong was without power after the grid failure.
‘We have nothing to do if power supply is not restored through the grid line. Even there is no scope to supply power locally through special arrangements here,’ he said.
-With New Age input
