Frequent power cuts add to people’s suffering amid sultry weather

Suffering of people in sultry weather has intensified with frequent power cuts across the country in recent days.
Shortage of power supply coupled with technical glitches in power transmission as well as distribution system have been causing power cuts by four to five times a day in urban areas including Dhaka while the frequency and duration are sometimes more than double in the rural areas, said officials of Power Development Board and Power Grid Company of Bangladesh.
‘I have been delaying purchase of an instant power supply system with the hope that we will not have to experience frequent power cuts,’ Harun-Or-Rashid, a resident at Banasree area of the city, told New Age on Sunday.
‘I had to buy an IPS today after experiencing frequent power cuts even in the midnight during hot weather,’ he said, adding that the government’s claim about success in power sector was rather exaggerated.
Power board officials attributed shortage of gas supply to shortage of power supply while the grid company officials cited age-old sub-stations and transmission system to the interruptions in power supply.
The government’s public document, however, showed no deficit in power supplies against demand.
In the last four days, the power board showed in its document that it had met the entire demand for electricity. The reports showed that the demand for power peaked more than 9,000MW in recent days with sultry weather.
Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded 34 to 39 degree centigrade temperature with more than 80 per cent humidity in most areas of the country in the last four days, according to official reports.
Dhaka Power Distribution Company executive director Md Ramiz Uddin Sarker claimed that they had to impose load-shedding for once or twice on Saturday to accommodate a supply shortage of approximately 150MW against the highest demand for about 1,250MW.
Officials claimed that the highest demand for power in entire Dhaka city was estimated at approximately 2,500MW while DPDC, Dhaka Electric Supply Company and Rural Electrification Board jointly supplied 2,200MW.
They said that the demand for power went up significantly due to humid weather.
New Age correspondents in the divisional headquarters of Barisal, Chittagong, Rajshahi and Rangpur said that people in the urban areas had experienced power cuts by up to six times a day in the urban areas while the frequency was 12 to 15 times a day in the rural areas.
In Chittagong, a 23/132 kV sub-station caught fire on Saturday night putting many areas of the port city into dark for hours together.
Prabir Kumar Saha, chief engineer of the power board, said that a probe body was formed to find out the cause of the fire incident.
People in Cox’s Bazar experienced at least eight times power cuts on Saturday.
North West Zone Power Distribution blamed storms for frequent power cuts in Rajshahi city.
People in Barisal and Khulna experienced the same for the past few days. 

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net