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Little immediate remedy in sight
Country heaving under frequent power outages
M Azizur Rahman
12/26/2005
Frequent power disruptions coupled with voltage fluctuations have become acute in different parts of the country in the last several days as generation from a number of power plants have remained suspended either for technical faults or overhauling purposes, official sources said.
The plants remaining suspended on technical grounds include 210 mega-watt (MW) capacity Siddhirganj power plant, 210 MW Rauzan Power Plant, 60 MW Khulna power plant and one unit of Ashuganj power plant, a senior official of the Power Development Board (PDB) told the FE.
Besides, two units of Ashuganj power plant having 190 MW capacity, 100 MW Baghabari power plant, 30 MW Fenchuganj power plant, 80 MW Tongi plant and 55 MW one-unit of Ghorasal plant are being overhauled, he added.
Residents of southeastern parts of the capital especially Mugda, Maniknagar and Demra areas are worst hit by the electricity outages.
Electricity supply in some of these areas are being suspended from 9.0am to 5.0pm regularly for last several days apart from regular load-shedding at night, it was alleged.
"The problem would be solved shortly," the PDB official added.
Despite the fact that winter has set in, the load-shedding was 250MW Sunday when the electricity production was 3250MW against the peak-hour demand of 3500 MW, according to PDB.
Clarifying the present situation, PDB sources said a number of power plants are now going through overhauling process to overcome their technical faults and be fully operational from February 2006 to ensure electricity supply during irrigation period before summer.
The Power Division under the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources (MPEMR) earlier asked all public and private power plant operating authorities to complete overhauling of their respective plants by the mentioned period.
MPEMR sources said, a good number of power plants in the country have already become obsolete, which caused their shut down every now and then.
The government is counting huge losses only for their maintenance.
A high-powered committee constituted by Prime Ministers' Office (PMO) earlier identified 31 old power plants having the power generation capacity of 534MW for replacement
But the Planning Commission did not approve the proposal, MPEMR sources added.
Besides, the faulty distribution system is causing frequent power outages in Khulna and Chittagong areas, PDB sources claimed.
In Khulna and Chittagong, the electricity generation capacity is quite satisfactory but due to bottlenecks in the distribution system, electricity transmission hampers there significantly.
Meanwhile, the 80MW Tongi power plant is the first power generation project that has been implemented by the incumbent four-party alliance government in last four years of its five-year's tenure.
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