SHAMIMA RITA

Power outages continued to disrupt life and businesses in parts of the country yesterday despite the resumption of operations at two power plants that had shut down due to technical faults.

Power cuts forced factories to spend more on diesel for generators, disrupted students’ studies, threatened shrimp farms by affecting aeration systems, caused sleepless nights and interrupted FIFA World Cup viewing, residents and business owners said.

Although the situation improved yesterday, power officials said supply shortages persisted in many distribution areas, particularly in rural areas.

Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Iqbal Hassan Mahmood Tuku told parliament that the country had largely recovered from Sunday’s disruption, when the major power plants went offline, knocking around 3,000MW out of the national grid.

“Yesterday (Sunday) was bad. Today, we have been able to recover from that situation,” he said, adding that electricity generation had risen to 14,500MW against a demand of 14,839MW, leaving a deficit of 339MW.

Despite the improvement, load shedding of 1,404MW at the substation level was forecast for yesterday evening’s peak, with Mymensingh expected to face the largest Grid

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