Disorganised load shedding disrupts outer Dhaka life

The government started an organised load shedding from Tuesday as part of its austerity measures to cut foreign expenditure amid soaring import costs of electricity-producing gas and oil, yet consumers, living particularly outside the capital, find the outage "completely disorganised".

In many areas across the country, people are facing four to five hours of power cuts daily on an average, although the government said it would be one to two hours area-wise, report our correspondents. 

The Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board (BREB) allegedly cuts power supply without any prior announcement, they reported. In such a situation, the unorganised load shedding disrupts people's normal life and business activities. Older people and infants are falling sick because of the sweltering heat.

Local utility service providers said their services are also being disrupted as they are not receiving enough electricity from the national grid.

On Tuesday, the maximum electricity supply was 13,200MW while the demand was above 14,000MW, which means the country was under load shedding for 800MW.

Consumers at the Noakhali municipality and different unions faced six to seven hours of load-shedding on Wednesday. The first power cut-off occurred there at 7.45am that lasted for over one hour. The day's third supply cut happened at 12.30pm and it was continuing till our Noakhali correspondent filed the report at 3pm.

Several businessmen in the city's Maijdi area complained that as per the government decision, the authorities were supposed to inform them about the suspension of the power supply, but no campaigning or announcement was seen in the area.
Didarul Alam, director of Maizdi e-Village, a publishing house, said it is not possible to run the printing machine if such a frequent load shedding occurs.

"We are not only being losers in terms of business but also the outage is damaging our machines," he told The Business Standard.

Admitting that load shedding in the area is occurring for hours, Nurul Alam, an engineer at the Bangladesh Power Development Board Maijdi office, told TBS that there is a demand of 34 megawatts of electricity every day, but they are getting the supply of only 12 megawatts.

Electricity customers in ​​Brahmanbaria said that load shedding happens several times in the morning, afternoon, evening and night and lasts from one to one and half hours each time.

Mansoor Ali, a resident of Baraichra village of the district's Sarail upazila, said they faced load shedding four times from Tuesday night to early Wednesday.  "As a result, none of us could sleep properly."

People in Shakira said that although the authorities announced an organised load shedding of one hour, but in reality, they face that for hours several times.

"Electricity office has announced that there will be load shedding from 7 pm to 8 pm. But they did not follow the plan," Farooq Khan, a resident of Shibpur village in Satkhira Sadar, told TBS. 

Garment factories in Savar and Ashulia, also struggling with unorganised load shedding. 

Abul Kashem, managing director of AKH Group, told The Business Standard that they are suffering from both gas and electricity crises.

"Hours-long power cuts disrupting our production and increasing costs," he said.

When contacted, AGM Md Shahjahan Kabir, senior general manager at the Dhaka Palli Bidyut Samity-1 told TBS that they had load shedding of up to 120 MW on Tuesday against the total demand of 400 MW. The load shedding was close to 100 MW Wednesday noon.

Consumers in Dhaka, also alleged that the organised load shedding is not going on within the plan. Many said as they have faced power cuts multiple times for hours, though the authorities said it would be occurring once a day in an area.
 

Our Correspondents from Cumilla, Khulna, Noakhali, Bogura, Rajshahi, Savar, Mymensingh, Dinajpur, Jashore, Satkhira and Sylhet contributed to this report.