Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Iqbal Hasan Mahmood Tuku has told Parliament that the country’s power situation has improved, with load-shedding reduced to 339 MW, although some areas will continue to experience outages.
In a statement under Rule 300 in the National Parliament on Monday, the minister said the country’s electricity demand was 14,839MW while production stood at 14,500MW, resulting in load-shedding of 339MW.
“There will be load-shedding in some areas. We are trying to ensure that there is none,” the minister said, adding that the situation was bad on Sunday but they have been able to overcome it.
However, consumers in at least seven districts staged protests on Sunday against the load-shedding. In Kendua, Netrokona, the Rural Electrification Board office was vandalised. The upazila’s electricity demand is 27MW, but supply was only 9MW.
On Sunday, the minister had informed Parliament that two large power plants were shut down due to technical faults, reducing supply by 3,000MW and increasing load-shedding, even in Dhaka.
In his Monday statement, however, Iqbal Hasan Mahmood said production had resumed at the two closed power plants.
