Govt plans balanced load-shedding for rural and urban areas

After one week of the announcement of one to two-hour power outages per day, the government is now planning balanced blackouts for both rural and urban areas, said officials.  

Mohammad Hossain, director general of the Power Cell Division, said they received information about "abnormal blackouts" of four to five hours in a single day in rural areas in the first week of the "organised" load-shedding.

He said now the government wants to minimise the duration of power outages in rural areas to save the small and medium businesses in villages.

The government on 18 July decided to cut power supply for one to two hours in a day to cope with the ongoing energy crisis. All the diesel-fired power plants, which used to contribute 1,000-1,500MW to the national grid daily, were temporarily shut down.

But the duration of the power cuts was not the same in cities and villages.

Frequent power outages have been reported from different parts of the country since the first week of July. Officials attributed the power cuts to the suspension of liquefied natural gas purchase from the open market amid global energy price rises.

In the third week of July, the power cuts turned chaotic specially in districts and upazila towns, as people faced load-shedding for up to eight hours.

The government points the finger at rising energy prices in the international market due to the Russia-Ukraine war. However, several energy experts blamed the country's failure in exploring new gas fields, which ultimately resulted in the fuel import dependency.