Power sector suffers Tk 10b losses

Losses the power sector suffered during the countrywide turmoil over the past one week are estimated at around Tk 10 billion, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said on Monday.
Miscreants belonging to BNP and Jamaat carried out vandalism and made arson attacks on different power offices and sub-stations across the country, causing huge damage to these state properties, he said.
Their target was to destroy the power supply system, Mr Hamid said at a press conference at Bidyut Bhaban in the city.
Some of these power offices and sub-stations are located at Cherag Ali, Kajla, Japan Garden City, Azimpur and Char Syedpur, he added.
The miscreants also set fire to Narsingdi Palli Bidyut Samity-1, Madaripur Palli Bidyut Samity and Narayanganj Palli Bidyut Samity-2 offices and vehicles.
Mr Hamid also said that steps have been taken to ease the sufferings of power and gas consumers who could not recharge their pre-paid meters due to internet shutdown.
To ensure continuation of the utility services to consumers during the ongoing crisis, the power and gas distribution companies have increased emergency balance of prepaid meters, he added.
Power Division Secretary Md Habibur Rahman and Chairman of Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) Mahbubur Rahman also spoke at the press conference.
UNB adds: State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid has directed the power and energy sector utilities to provide emergency balances to their pre-paid consumers, reports UNB.
"We've directed the officials of power and gas offices to provide emergency balances to those consumers who come to recharge their pre-paid cards", he told reporters while visiting Tejgaon local office of Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC) on Monday.
He informed that each single-phase consumer of electricity will get Tk 3000 of emergency balance while the three-phase consumer will get Tk 5000 emergency balance.
The directives from the state minister came against the backdrop of the suffering of the pre-paid electricity and gas consumers who failed to recharge their cards from vendors due to shutdown of internet services.
According to consumers of different areas, electricity and gas supply was stopped automatically when their cards' limit was exhausted.
It was seen in many areas in the city that the pre-paid card users had to wait in long queues for several hours to recharge their cards from their respective power offices as card recharge vendors could not provide them the recharge service.
Sources in the Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC) and Dhaka Electric Supply Company (Desco), there are over 9 lakh electricity consumers who use the pre-paid cards.
Iqramul Haq, a resident of Chattogram'sKhulshi area, said, "I had to recharge my electricity pre-paid card standing in a long queue for four hours."
Rahima Begum, a resident of Rampura area, said, "Now I have taken loan from the meter card to continue electricity supply at my home but I don't what will happen later."
UNB Keraniganj correspondent reports: Hundreds of families in South Keraniganj, who use pre-paid meter cards, have been suffering for not having electricity in the past two days as they failed to recharge their pre-paid meters owing to the internet shutdown.
The residents of the upazila have also been suffering from water crisis as they couldn't operate motor for lifting water in tanks.
Even the food kept in their refrigerators went rotten, said some residents.
Contacted, Julfiker Ali, general manager of Palli Bidyut-4, did not make any comment in this regard.
Electricity and gas consumers, who use pre-paid cards, have been facing problems failing to recharge their cards as the country has been experiencing internet shutdown since Thursday night amid the countrywide unrest over quota reform and attack on students.
According to consumers of different areas, the pre-paid services are the app-based mobile financial services (MFS) including bKash, Nagad, mKash, Upay, Rocket and other digital wallets. But due to complete internet shutdown, these payment systems are not working.
All the utilities in power and energy sector use the MFS to receive their both pre-paid and post-paid bills.
These include Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), Dhaka Electric Supply Company (Desco), Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC), Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board (BREB), West Zone Power Distribution Company (WZPDC) and Northern Electricity Supply Company (Nesco).
Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company and other gas distribution companies also use the MFS.
In such a situation, Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources in a short text message informed that BPDB's customers can recharge pre-paid meters through USSD short code line GP*777#, bKash *247#, Nagad*167#, Upay*268#.
However, the ministry did not say anything about other utilities companies in power and energy sector.
About the problem, a top official of the Power, Energy and Mineral Resources said that the utilities have been directed to recharge the cards of the consumers whenever they come to the local offices.

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