Old Dhaka factories take brunt of power outages

FE Team | Published: March 21, 2009 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report
Mohammad Shahin is worried about the future of his small factory at East Islambagh in the old part of the city as production has been cut by almost half due to persisting power shortage.
Sitting inside his tiny factory that produces dice for the plastic industry of the surrounding areas and other parts of the capital, he said power supply remains suspended in every alternate hour.
"The businesses are fine. But growing power shortage is seriously hampering the production," he told the FE.
Power shortage is hurting almost every business of the area.
"It has become tough to pay wages to the employees, let alone think of making profit," owner of Azizul Engineering Mozibur Rahman told FE Thursday.
His factory used to supply 8-10 nailing machines daily to the clients only three months back. But that number has come down to 2-3. It will be difficult for him to keep the business running if power shortage continues, he said.
Rahman said he has taken Tk 400,000 loan from a bank and is repaying the credit through monthly installment. "I have to repay the loan no matter whether the production continues or not," he said.
Small factory owners of East Islambagh like them are the worst victims of the growing power outage as they cannot afford to have backup support through installation of diesel-driven generators.
They said everyday power supply remains disrupted for 6-8 hours in most areas and on an average it goes off five to six times a day.
The government has already started saving 100 megawatt (MW) of electricity in Dhaka region during daytime to supply it to farmers for irrigation, the State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Shamsul Haque Tuku recently told the parliament.
Bangladesh's fragile power sector at present can generate 3400-3600 mw electricity daily against the national demand of about 5,000 mw. Dhaka city and its adjoining areas consume around 40 of the total electricity generated in the country, sources said.