Power cuts have increased across 21 districts of southwestern Bangladesh, including Khulna. At Wednesday (14 October) evening's peak, load-shedding in these districts reached 116 megawatts, and at the off-peak midday it was 101 megawatts. Frequent outages have left consumers struggling.
According to the central control room of West Zone Power Distribution Company (WZPDCL), demand in the 21 districts after dusk on Wednesday was 694 MW against a supply of 578 MW. The Khulna zone received 447 MW against demand of 528 MW (a shortfall of 81 MW), and the Barishal zone 131 MW against 166 MW (a shortfall of 35 MW).
By district, evening load-shedding was highest in Khulna at 29 MW, followed by Barishal at 22, Rajbari 13, Faridpur 12 and Jhenaidah 11. At midday Barishal had 25 MW and Khulna 17 MW of load-shedding.
A day earlier, on Tuesday (13 October), the shortfall in the 21 districts was 36 MW at 1pm and 79 MW at 7pm, so the gap widened at both midday and evening within a day.
Belal Hossain of Gobarchaka in Khulna told Bangla Tribune that power used to go for an hour after every hour, but on Wednesday it went for an hour and a half at a stretch; by his reckoning his area is without electricity for 13 to 14 hours a day. Ambia Khatun of Boyra said people had been using electricity to cope with the gas shortage, and frequent cuts had made things unbearable. Latika Rani of Tutpara said power goes even during urgent work.
The report is by Bangla Tribune's Khulna correspondent.
Photo: Towhidul Islam 21 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0); Faridpur's Lakepar on a night of load-shedding, a representative picture
Source: Bangla Tribune
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