Bangladesh witnessing huge power shortages, PM Hasina assures improvement over next 10-15 days
Bangladesh is witnessing huge power shortages with widespread load shedding in capital city Dhaka and other places in the country. Different localities in Dhaka report frequent power cuts and load shedding over the last several days causing immense hardships to people. The data from Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) showed that power supply in Bangladesh was 25 percent below the demand. The overall deficit in power supply widened to 15 percent in the first week of June compared to 5.2 percent average shortfall in May. According to an analysis by Reuters, this is the worst electricity crisis for Bangladesh since 2013.
The power supply situation has worsened as several of the country’s electricity generating plants have been shut down. On 5 June, 50 plants were also closed due to technical reasons and 51 power plants could not produce electricity properly due to lack of fuel, said PGCB..The 1320 MW Payra Thermal power plant has been shut down completely since Monday due to a shortage of coal which is expected to last for 3 weeks.
On Monday, nearly a fourth of the 11.5 gigawatts of the country’s gas-fired power plants and about two thirds of the 3.4 gigawatts of coal fired plants were shut for the day due to lack of fuel, says Reuter quoting daily reports from the BPCB.
Several factors including unprecedented heatwave in the country and foreign exchange shortage have contributed to the worsening of the situation. Government Primary schools have been closed due to the unprecedented heatwave in the country. The value of Bangladesh currency Taka declined by over 15 percent during the last 12 months through May. The foreign exchange reserves of the country declined to USD 30.96 billion in May this year from a peak of over USD 45 billion in July last year.
Acknowledging the hardship of the people due to the electricity crisis, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina assured on Wednesday that the situation will ease within the next 10-15 days as more electricity will be added to the national grid. Blaming the international situation for the power crisis, Prime Minister Hasina said that Bangladesh never expected to suffer temperatures going over 41 degrees Celsius.
