UNB, Dhaka :
Production in the country’s industrial units was massively hampered with around 30 percent decline in their operations following the countrywide blackout as the national power grid collapsed twice on Saturday.
Though the business leaders could not immediately figure out the exact losses caused by the ‘unusual’ power disruption in the country, they admitted massive disruption in production line.
President of Exporters Association of Bangladesh (EAB) Abdus Salam Murshedy said he does not talk about production fall, but the cost of production has increased three times than that of the usual one as diesel-run generators are being run for production.
“In a word, I can say, production in all industrial units, not only in the export-oriented units, was hampered massively,” Murshedy, also a former BGMEA President, told UNB.
He said, he had never seen such massive power disruption in his entire life. “Today, we felt the importance of electricity supply.”
The export leader also said it is not possible to run generators for a longer period. “If we do so, it may turn inoperative.”
Murshedy urged the authorities concerned to put in all efforts to restore the electricity supply as soon as possible.
“This is an unusual situation. The overall production, I think, may fall by 30 percent due to this prolonged power supply disruption,” former BGMEA first vice-president Nasir Uddin Chowdhury told UNB.
He said, they have standby generators to continue production in case of load-shedding. “But for a longer period generation, generators are not enough as they can run at best 3-4 hours constantly.”
Nasir Uddin said they, in such unusual cases, can only run generators with one-hour interval that ultimately reduces production.
The Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), however, said it is not possible to talk about any exact figure of loss right now. “This is simply an accident. We’re depending on generators,” FBCCI Vice President M Helal Uddin told the agency.
He said, since it is an accident people will understand and manage it the way they managed it five years back when the electricity supply was poor.
With the second time failure of the power grid, the entire country plunged into darkness, inflicting sufferings on people and hurting the business hard.
The national power grid suffered the breakdown at about 11:30am following a major technical glitch at the grid line receiving electricity from India, disrupting both the power distribution and generation.
Meanwhile, the shop owners and major shopping malls witnessed a dull day due to electricity disruption that halted movement of lifts and escalators in major malls reducing the movement of shoppers.
“Today, we saw the worst-ever day. The shoppers are not coming as lifts and escalators are not working,” says a shop owner at city’s Fortune Shopping Mall.
