Erratic power supply hits small industries hard
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Jasim Uddin Haroon
The country's small industrial units especially those, which cannot afford to own power generators, have been facing untold sufferings following erratic power supply, owners of the small industrial units told the FE.
They claimed that the power disruption forced them to cut their production by at least 40 per cent recently thus increasing their production cost.
The industrial units included light engineering workshops, aluminium, sub contracting and other small industrial factories.
Obaidur Rahman, proprietor of Rahmania Aluminium Factory at Mitford area told the FE: "Our production has dropped over 40 per cent due to power disruption."
"We get power supply for around four hours out of eight hours working time. In such a situation how can our production remain unaffected ?" Mr Obaidur questioned.
Owners of the factories said in many cases they are being forced to defer supply schdeules to export oriented units leading to rise in the lead time of shipment.
Safiullah Chowdhury, owner of Kulshi Packaging Materials, said: "We are failing to supply products to the garment factories as power failures are forcing us to cut down on the production."
He said the factories are primarily operated by electricity supplied by PDB adding: "Many cannot afford to set up captive power plants. Besides, many of our machines cannot be run by diesel generators."
Safiullah said earlier his factory used to supply 12-13 truck-loads of cartons to the garment units a day and now it has declined to 4-5 trucks.
Abdur Razzak, president of Bangladesh of Bangladesh Light Engineering Owners Association told the FE: "There is no point in running the factories in the evening as load shedding occurs at the same frequency as in daytime."
Awald Hossain, proprietor of Millat Engineering at the city's Dholaikhal area told the FE that the government should set specific time for load shedding at industrial areas so that they can plan their production.
SM Aslam Ali, secretary general of Bangladesh Sub-contracting industry Association said that many of their members have been forced to shut down their units following such power crisis.
The country's small industrial units especially those, which cannot afford to own power generators, have been facing untold sufferings following erratic power supply, owners of the small industrial units told the FE.
They claimed that the power disruption forced them to cut their production by at least 40 per cent recently thus increasing their production cost.
The industrial units included light engineering workshops, aluminium, sub contracting and other small industrial factories.
Obaidur Rahman, proprietor of Rahmania Aluminium Factory at Mitford area told the FE: "Our production has dropped over 40 per cent due to power disruption."
"We get power supply for around four hours out of eight hours working time. In such a situation how can our production remain unaffected ?" Mr Obaidur questioned.
Owners of the factories said in many cases they are being forced to defer supply schdeules to export oriented units leading to rise in the lead time of shipment.
Safiullah Chowdhury, owner of Kulshi Packaging Materials, said: "We are failing to supply products to the garment factories as power failures are forcing us to cut down on the production."
He said the factories are primarily operated by electricity supplied by PDB adding: "Many cannot afford to set up captive power plants. Besides, many of our machines cannot be run by diesel generators."
Safiullah said earlier his factory used to supply 12-13 truck-loads of cartons to the garment units a day and now it has declined to 4-5 trucks.
Abdur Razzak, president of Bangladesh of Bangladesh Light Engineering Owners Association told the FE: "There is no point in running the factories in the evening as load shedding occurs at the same frequency as in daytime."
Awald Hossain, proprietor of Millat Engineering at the city's Dholaikhal area told the FE that the government should set specific time for load shedding at industrial areas so that they can plan their production.
SM Aslam Ali, secretary general of Bangladesh Sub-contracting industry Association said that many of their members have been forced to shut down their units following such power crisis.