Electricity Crisis in Bangladesh

Electricity crisis has been a problem for the people of Bangladesh. The government
policy on this issue is not right. I have some suggestions with a view to solving this
problem. Everyone is invited to give more suggestions.

The people of Bangladesh have been suffering from lack of electricity for the last few
years. Power distribution lines have been expanded to cover more consumers but
production of electricity did not increase. The main reason behind this is corruption. The
present government is doing the job of eliminating corruption. This will do good to the
nation. But this will not solve the electricity crisis.

There are some problems with the policy that was followed in the power sector. This
sector was always under government control. Recently large scale investment from
private sector was encouraged. But it did not solve the problem for various reasons. In the
context of Bangladesh, this problem can easily be solved by micro enterprise or micro
investment. For the success of that strategy, all types of taxes on the import and sale of
generators below the capacity of 10 mega watts must be fixed at zero per cent. Banks
should allow loans without mortgage for purchasing generators below 10 mw. This will
create employment for the youth. They will be able to invest in small area-wise power
production and distribution business. Low-priced electricity will strongly assist the boost
up of cottage industry in the rural areas. Owners of these micro power plants will need
employees for maintenance. In a small area, each household will be their customer and
they will negotiate the price. The city corporation or the municipality will ensure the
standard of service by regular inspection. This way the sufferings of the people from
power shortage will decrease significantly. These investors should be exempted from
income tax and vat for the first five years. This will certainly solve the power crisis. This
will also provoke some self-seekers, whose interest is going to be hurt. The government
should prevent them from doing anything harmful. The government should also
encourage manufacturing of small capacity generators locally.S

Electricity problem:

Bangladesh has been facing electricity shortage for many years. In last few years this
problem was not serious but in this year 2010 the problem has exceeded the common
people's patient. People are facing heavy load shading problem. In this hot summer
people have to stay ten to twelve hours without electricity. If the authority keeps run for
one hour another one hour they have to stay without electricity.

Bangladesh is located in tropical region. So almost all the year is summer except few
months. In summer season temperature rises up to 40 degree celcius. So, it's too hot.
People cannot use AC or fan for load shading in this country when the electricity goes
away.

Like other professionals students, businessman, online home worker, computer user,
industrialists are badly victim of this problem seriously.

In this modern age the power is the main and fundamental demand for common people to
the government but the government is failed to meet this demand.

After achieving independence the government has come and gone but no govt has
thought about this essential service for common people. Specially ministry of power,
Ministry of planning and chief of the country and ministry of finance are responsible for
this situation. All of them has shown negligence in this important sector.

Bangladesh is a over populated country. more than 1617 peoples live in per square mile.
To keep pace with population govt should establish power plant project but no govt has
done this important job. So, common people of Bangladesh are frustrated to see this kind
of attitude of Bangladesh Government. They have been suffering incredible
inconveniences in this summer.

As a conscious citizen I am condemning all government's policy about electrification

policy all over the country. Present government(Awamiligue) was also in power several
times in the past. So, present government, past government (BNP) and Jatio Party all are
also responsible for this present electricity crisis.

After entering in power no government has done nothing for development in this sector.
So the present Government should proper steps to recover this problem on urgent basis.
Simultaneously they should implement long term project which will be helpful to
recover this power shortage and it will be in normal position for next 50 years. From now
they have to take plan and pass it in the Bangladesh parliament.

I hope the present Govt and all other major political parties in BD WILL BE alerted. If
they continue their negligence in power sector the common people of Bangladesh will be
rebel soon. They will come out in the street and snatch power from the non qualified
goverment.

The writer of this article is an online worker but due to load shading problem many
computer and Internet workers including the author are badly affected to doing their job
in Bangladesh.

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Solve our electricity problem first of all

WE are neither living in the Dark Age nor in the Middle Age. This is twenty-
first century. We are living in a modern world of human revolution, human rights,
independence and sovereignty, press freedom, science, and technology, prosperity, civic
amenities and facilities, housing and building, airways, shipping, railway, motor vehicles,
television, mobile phone, computer, fax, e-mail service and what not.

Compared to other new independent states -- many developed, developing and under-
developed countries -- perhaps we in Bangladesh are the only ones living far behind even
some in the darkest corners of the world.

Due to our electricity failure, loadshedding and power crisis the sufferings of our people
are similar to those of the Middle Age. Our loss to industry, finance and banking, trade
and commerce, foreign investment in Bangladesh, our children's education is huge.

We understand and we are happy that our present government has undertaken and is
executing some giant development projects like construction of Padma Bridge, Jatrabari-
Gulistan Fly Over, widening Dhaka-Chittagong Highway, Dhaka elevated Expressway of
billions and billions of dollars.

We all feel the importance and necessity of all these development projects. But we must
remember that Rome was not built in a day. We may execute and implement all these
development projects one by one. It is not possible to undertake all the projects all at a
time. Slow but steady always wins the race.

Time and tide wait for none. Today the first and foremost requirement of our time, nation
and country as a whole is the immediate supply of adequate electricity.

Our authorities concerned may kindly give top-most priority and solve our electric
problem first of all in the greater interest of our sixteen crore people.

How to solve Bangladesh's Power(Electricity) outage problem ?

Wednesday October 04 2006 18:52:07 PM BDT

Mohiuddin Anwar , USA

Without having Nuclear Power Reactor Bangladesh cannot solve Power outage problem
in the country. After signing the NPT during Mujib era Bangladesh should have received
the Reactor proposed at Ruppur. What happened to Ruppur Nuclear Power Reactor? Who
has that answer?

Neither Awami. nor BNP nor JP of Ershad party sincerely tried solve this problem or will
bne able to solve this without nuclear power.

What was the benifit of signing NPT during Mujib rule? What we received in return? We
must ask this questions to our policy makers ans polticians.

Dr. Wazed Ali Mia is the most renowed nuclear scientist of Bangladesh. Nation needs his
opinion regarding our power needs. Sooner we evaluate this problem better for our
national interest.

If Bangladesh can make huge Jamuna Bridge they can built Nuclear power reactor for
national needs too.

Frequent resignation of our Power Minister's won't solve this problem

Mohiuddin Anwar , USA

********************************

Have any idea to solve electric problem in

Bangladesh?

First of all, let us discuss the present scenario of electricity production (generation) and
distribution system in Bangladesh, as follows:

We in Bangladesh get electricity from various sources of government-run electricity

generation facilities, like hydroelectric dam at Kaptai, Chittagong Hill Tracts districts,
built in mid 1960s that is producing some 100 MW. The majority of the larger power
generation units are run by using natural gas. We also we have small diesel generator
may be 25 to 50 MW under government control which are basically rusting away due to
sheer negligence of the people entrusted to keep them running. We have Barge-mounted
small power generators of about 50MW to 100 MW and a few upto 200 MW units which
are bogged down due to the corruption charges brought against the past civilian
governments, causing further loss of production of electricity.

Most of 250MW Gas Fired Power Generators installed by PDB (Power Development
Board) were supplied and installed in collaboration of Russia having old technology and
without regular availability of the spare parts of Russian origin which seldom conform to
U>S. or other developed countries from where our source of supply are available in these
days.

We have now total about 4000 MW Electricity Generation Capacity in Bangladesh

controlled by the Government where actual production is about 3000 MW due to constant
breakdown and preventive maintenance work. Therefore, we have continuous load-
shedding going on for the last 10 years for about 1000 MW every day when one or more
of the parts of the cities and villages would remain without electricity for every alternate
one hour.

I think we can solve this chronic power shortage within next 2 to 5 years time if our
government would liberalize the import of smaller to mid-sized Captive Power
generation Unit though private sector investment and allow their installation all over
Bangladesh, mainly for running private industries or housing complexes. Gradually the
whole power generation and distribution as well as marketing must be denationalized and
handed over to the private sector to run these efficiently as well as productively. That is
the only solution and hope for the next decades if we want to be competitive in export
business, particularly in garments industries.

Electricity sector in Bangladesh

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Bangladesh's energy infrastructure is quite small, insufficient and poorly managed. The
per capita energy consumption in Bangladesh is one of the lowest (136 kWH) in the
world. Noncommercial energy sources, such as wood, animal wastes, and crop residues,
are estimated to account for over half of the country's energy consumption. Bangladesh
has small reserves of oil and coal, but very large natural gas resources. Commercial
energy consumption is mostly natural gas (around 66%), followed by oil, hydropower
and coal.
Electricity is the major source of power for country's most of the economic activities.
Bangladesh's installed electric generation capacity was 4.7 GW in 2009; only three-fourth
of which is considered to be ‘available’. Only 40% of the population has access to
electricity with a per capita availability of 136 kWh per annum. Problems in the
Bangladesh's electric power sector include corruption in administration, high system
losses, delays in completion of new plants, low plant efficiencies, erratic power supply,
electricity theft, blackouts, and shortages of funds for power plant maintenance. Overall,
the country's generation plants have been unable to meet system demand over the past
decade.

In generating and distributing electricity, the failure to adequately manage the load leads
to extensive load shedding which results in severe disruption in the industrial production
and other economic activities. A recent survey reveals that power outages result in a loss
of industrial output worth $1 billion a year which reduces the GDP growth by about half
a percentage point in Bangladesh. A major hurdle in efficiently delivering power is
caused by the inefficient distribution system. It is estimated that the total transmission
and distribution losses in Bangladesh amount to one-third of the total generation, the
value of which is equal to US $247 million per year.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Renewable Energy
• 2 Recent Plans
• 3 Nuclear Power Plant
• 4 References
• 5 See also

• 6 External links

[edit] Renewable Energy

Bangladesh has 15 MW solar energy capacity through rural households and 1.9 MW
wind power in Kutubdia and Feni. Bangladesh has planned to produce 5% of total power
generation by 2015 & 10% by 2020 from renewable energy sources like air, waste &
solar energy.

[edit] Recent Plans

The Ministry of Power and Energy has been mobilising Tk 40,000 crore ($5.88 billion) to
generate 5,000 MW of electricity to reduce load shedding into a tolerable level within
next four and half years during the term of the present government. Under the plan, the
Power Development Board (PDB) would produce 500 MW gas-fired electricity between
July and December, 2009 to over come load shedding within December. The PDB would
hire furnace-oil based 1,000MW of electricity from private sector from January to June
2010, the plan said. In 2011, the government would install furnace-oil based 800 MW
capacity of power plant. The PDB officials would seek suitable place to establish the
plant, a senior official of the PDB said. Besides the government would also hire another
diesel or furnace oil based power plant having capacity of 700 MW in 2012 to keep load
shedding into mild level, the official said. However, the government also contemplates to
establish four coal-fired based power plants with capacity of producing 500 MW of
electricity each with public and private partnership (PPP) in Rajshahi and Chittagong
region. The government has initially tried to create fund of Tk 6,000 crore ($1 billion) to
implement the plan, sources said. The power division has tried to utilise the government's
budgetary allocation of Tk. 2000 crore for PPP in this regard, sources added. "If we can
create the fund of Tk. 6,000 crore, it would be possible also to mobilise Tk 40,000 crore
under ppp to produce 5,000 MW of electricity within four and half years," PDB chairman
ASM Alamgir Kabir told the New Nation on 29 June 2009. During the meeting, Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina permitted the power division to implement the PDB plan to
reduce load shedding up to a tolerable level. Prime Minister's Adviser for Power and
Energy Dr Tawfiq-e-Elahi Bir Bikram, State Minister for Power and Energy Shamsul
Haque Tuku, Power Division Secretary Md Abul Kalam, PDB Chairman ASM Alamgir
Kabir were present. Recently prime minister Sheikh Hasina inagurated a power plant at
Chandpur.

[edit] Nuclear Power Plant

Bangladesh plans to set up the 1,000 MW power plant at Rooppur, 200 km (125 miles)
northwest of the capital Dhaka, by 2011.