State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid on Friday said that the government will draw up a plan afresh over the existing power rationing issue after monitoring the situation for the next 7-10 days.
“New plans will be made for how to further reduce load-shedding across the country and at the same time adhere to the schedule of power cuts by collecting data during this period,” he said while talking to the journalists at his residence in Dhaka.
On Monday, the government announced that it would enforce nationwide area-based power cuts for an hour from Tuesday to tackle the energy crisis which has already affected electricity generation in the country.
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However, it has been alleged that there is a discriminatory enforcement of power rationing between the capital and other parts of the country. Residents, particularly outside the capital, alleged that they had to experience power cuts for several hours beyond the planned load-shedding.
Mentioning that the production shortfall ranges between 1,500MW-2,000MW daily, the state minister said they are looking for a cheap fuel market.
He said although the Power Division is ready to fulfil 100 per cent demand, the authorities are dealing with the fuel issue to meet up the demand.
“The European countries used to import gas from Russia, but have stopped now. They have reached out to our source. Those of us who used to import 40 per cent from the spot market are in trouble. As the supply is less than demand, the price has gone up,” he said.
“If we are able to deal with the ongoing situation keeping it at a tolerable level for some time, we will have some alternative energy power plants like Rampal and Adani. We will get electricity from the plants starting next year. We hope we will be able to overcome the situation.”
Nasrul said only 10 per cent of the total volume of diesel in the country is used for power generation. The remaining 90 per cent is used in the irrigation and transportation sectors, he added.
