MEDIA reports on Thursday said rural Bangladesh is severely starving from power shortage during the holy month of Ramzan as load-shedding at peak hours from 6 pm to 10 pm has become almost a regular phenomenon. It is no more secret that electricity supply authorities are regularly withdrawing electricity from rural power grid to supply it to the cities to sidetrack highly visible public criticism of government failure in national media. The government claim that it increased power generation by over 1,000 MW over the past few years seems to be lacking credibility by the fact in the ground.
News reports said that on an average the consumers in rural areas don’t get power supply for 12 hours each day. In the events of storms or high rising temperatures consumers in rural areas even don’t get electricity for up to two days at a stretch. Increased power outage or a fall in its generation caused by shortage of fuel supply is also responsible for this rise in public suffering across the country. Many wonder when the government claims of huge investment, where all such progress is stalling when public sufferings are ever growing in summer days from shortage of power.
Statistics suggest that demand for electricity in the rural areas increased from 3,850MW to 4,600MW in one year until May this year after connecting over 2.5 million new power users by the Rural Electrification Board (REB). So it is failing to meet the demand. In fact the country’s power generation and distribution is in a mess because various vested interest quarters are at work to win power generation contract and mint money by misusing the opportunity and resources. REB did not contemplate the risk of adding so many new connections when power generation remained almost stalled.
Political quarters made money from undue connection. Party men are forcing new connections or illegal connection for their own fortune. But when power supply is not increasing load-shedding is the only way to overcome the shortage. In this case electricity users in rural areas are becoming worst victims.
Such shortage is particularly affecting irrigation of croplands in rural areas as it is heavily dependent on electricity supply. We must say neglect to rural Bangladesh is no way sensible because it produces the bulk of commodities to supply the cities. We must say the government should put greater emphasis on producing solar power. Rightly, it may be a timely initiative to increase the power supply in rural areas. It is also environment-friendly. If government takes it seriously, it is not difficult a task to introduce more solar power in the countryside. It will relieve rural people from frequent blackout and to get electricity at low cost.
