Recurrent power outages fray rural people’s nerves

People in rural areas are experiencing unprecedented load shedding for the last two days as the Rural Electrification Board (REB) and Power Development Board (PDB) are rampantly cutting off  power without any prior announcement or maintaining time schedule.
About 20 Palli Bidyut Samity (PBS) out of 80 PBSs are facing sever load shedding at daytime and at nighttime in adjoining areas of capital Dhaka including Savar, Narayanganj, Gazipur, Munshiganj, Ashulia. While Moulovibazar, Mymenshing, Netrokona in the country's north are
facing 6 to 8 hours of power cut every day although the government announced that no area will get more than one hour load shedding during the day.
"For the last two days PDB's power generation scenario shows that the average production is around 12,500 MW to 12,570 MW and possible shortages around 1,630 MW. But, unfortunately, we faced 1,800 MW of power shortage at midnight Tuesday. Today (Thursday day time) we cut 800 MW of electricity from our system�we don't know how we will run our system as people are venting their anger to our station managers across the country.
Now we are eagerly waiting for the rain to intervene as we have nothing to fight against the situation," a senior official of the REB told the Daily Observer on Thursday evening preferring anonymity.
According to our Moulovibazar correspondent consumers of Kamalganj and Juri are experiencing 8 to 9 hours of load shedding in 24 hours, there is no schedule of load shedding.
"PDB generated a total of 12,570 MW of electricity against a demand for 14,200 MW projected demand. The power cut was planned to be 1,630 MW to cover the gap between demand and supply,' said Shamim Hasan, Director Public Relations, of the state-owned Bangladesh Power Development Board.
"We have to cut 1,800 MW of power from the system on Tuesday night, today in day time we cut 8,00 MW, we are getting only 6,000 MW to 6,500 MW of electricity against the demand of 8,500 MW, our northern part is badly suffered for low voltage due to frequent load shedding, there is no area-wise load shedding chart of ours as the allocation is so poor, our officials and employees are facing sever public rage as we failed to satisfy our 3 crore and 30 lakh consumers," a senior official of REB told this correspondent.
Due to this un-equal distribution, people living in rural areas of the country are experiencing unlimited-unplanned power cut, according to our Rajshahi Correspondent the areas under Rajshahi Palli Bidyut Samity have been witnessing up to 12 hours of load shedding since Tuesday, when the government started the area-wise load shedding schedule.
The people of Rajshahi division complained that they are experiencing frequent power outages, despite the announced schedule.
Rajshahi district's Tanore, Godagari, Paba, Mohanpur, Durgapur, Bagha and Charghat upazilas are under the jurisdiction of Palli Bidyut Samity.
"The electricity comes back every two hours. And then it's goes after 15 minutes," said Roni Ahamed, a resident of Charghat Upazila.
Bazlur Rahman, a resident of Bagha Upazila said that they are facing unbearable load shedding similar to that during Eid.
Responding to queries on the matter, Rajshahi Palli Bidyut Samity General Manager Md Ekramul Haque said that power supply is less than the demand in the area.
Meanwhile, the areas under Northern Electricity Supply Company (Nesco) saw comparatively less power outage than those under Palli Bidyut.
Nesco supplies electricity to eight district sadars--- Rajshahi, Naogaon, Natore, Chapainawabganj, Bogura, Joypurhat, Pabna and Sirajganj. Six upazila sadars are also under their jurisdiction.
According to Nesco sources, at 9:00pm on Tuesday, their demand was 478 MW but they were able to supply 391 MW, leading to a power deficit of 87 MW.
In 24 hours, the areas under the power distribution companies saw over four hours of power outage.
Meanwhile, the State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources has conducted a meeting with senior officials of the Energy Division to accelerate the ongoing augmentation plan of the Petrobangla to increase gas output from the different gas fields.