Load-shedding has multi-dimensional consequences, especially at a time of punishing heat and humidity in April, the 'cruellest month'. According to the National Load Dispatch Centre (NLDC) at the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh, load-shedding on Wednesday reached up to 1500 megawatt (MW). Euphemistically called load-shedding, it is in effect a crisis of electricity or production and supply that fall short of the demand. Unsurprisingly, the authorities demonstrate a bias in favour of large cities marked by discrimination in the urban-rural divide of sharing utilities. Granted that factories, industries and administrative as well as commercial centres are concentrated in urban locations and losses caused to production facilities are likely to be colossal if power is snapped to those. But when it comes to administrative buildings and shopping malls and other outlets, random use of lighting, fans and air conditioners far exceeds the actual need. Rationalisation of power distribution between urban and rural locations always suffers. Only during the irrigation period when demand for electricity is low, do the authorities try to divert power to villages and that too in the small hours, forcing farmers to forgo sleep.
What the authorities, however, forget is that villages have undergone phenomenal changes with cottage, micro, small and medium enterprises (CMSMEs) alongside agro-industries coming up at a decent pace. In the country's north, small dairies and poultries have turned out to be the livelihoods for many families. Load-shedding for long can prove fatal for eggs and chicken. Milk can as well get spoiled by the effect of heat waves. The CMSMEs are pitted against many odds, not least the soaring interest rates on bank loans, which have constrained their prospect of making profit.
Apart from such economic concerns, the majority of village population have to work under the open sky. Right now, it is harvesting period in several parts of the country. At least it is not too much to expect by the toiling masses that they get some relief from the searing temperature when they return home for rest. Many people's livelihoods depend on uninterrupted supply of power. Photostat machines, computers have now become means of livelihoods for many youths in villages. Both service providers and customers may suffer irreparable losses due to uncertain supply of power.
Given the Bangladesh Meteorological Department's forecast that the heat wave will persist longer, the demand for power will also rise. It bodes ill for the country because the different types of energy used as inputs for power plants are short in supply. The country's overcapacity for power generation has been negated by depletion of domestic gas, costly and uncertain import of oil, coal and liquefied gas on account of dollar crisis. More daunting will be the challenge if war in the Middle East escalates. Bangladesh's foreign debt servicing has risen by 49 per cent with the accumulated amount crossing the $1.0 billion mark for the first time. Add to this the government's failure to pay energy bills to both local and foreign companies, the crisis is likely to take a turn for the worse. It is against this backdrop, the uneasy revelation made by the recently published book, "Fifty Years of Bangladesh: Economy, Politics, Society and Culture" edited by Professors Rounaq Jahan and Rehman Sobhan should give policymakers sleepless nights. It contends that with denial of access to resources, 'ecological injustice' for poor populations 'has surpassed both the colonial and Pakistan experience'. The discrimination in power distribution is an example.
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