One of the reasons of electricity dearth is short supply of gas to power plants, sources said. Whereas Power Development Board (PDB) needs 85 crore cubic feet of gas to keep production on run, they are getting 64 crore cubic feet in consequence whereof 10 power plants have already been closed. It is learnt that production of 177 industries at Savar and Gazipur and that of 90 industries at Tongi (Dhaka) have gone down by 40 percent in which it is being apprehended that the GDP at the industrial sector may not reach last fiscal year's performance.
PDB supplies 600 to 700 megawatt of electricity to irrigated lands against the demand for 1,400 mw. As a result, the target of boro production in the country may not be achieved, sources claimed.
According to official accounts, the total demand for electricity in the country is 4200 mw whereas the power plants generate 3300 mw. Nonetheless, the private estimation claims that the total demand for electricity per day will be 5,200 mw, indicating frequent load shedding taking place in every part of the country.
However, a short of improvement in the electricity supply has been observed during last few days.
Though regular supply of electricity is one of the preconditions in the economic development of the country, the past governments failed to increase the production by any megawatt. The country witnessed last five years rule of the BNP led coalition government without a new power plant though they drafted two projects-one at Sirajganj and another at Bibyana-the installation of which could have added 900 mw of electricity to the national grid.
But the successive Caretaker Government of Dr. Fakhrudin Ahmed could not complete the project.
Sources said that the average production of electricity in 2006 was 3700 megawatt and after that the production seems to have fallen back. There were 83 active power plants at that time, decreasing to 70 one by one. Since the power plants depend heavily on regular gas supply, any setback in the gas fields will be devastating.
The proven gas reserve in the country being 8.39 trillion cubic feet, the reserve is likely to be exhausted latest by 2015, even earlier. Therefore, the alternate way is the extraction of coal from the collieries situated in North Bengal.
At present, the country produces 183 crore cubic feet of gas, short of demand by 25 crore cf. It has, therefore, been imperative to explore new gas fields in the interest of the economic development of the country. |
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