Staff Reporter :The probe committee set up to detect the reason of Saturday’s countrywide blackout sought yet another day for submitting its report, said Ahmed Kaikaus, the Chief of the eight-member committee. “We will place our update today (Thursday) at the ministry and will seek time for the final investigation,” Kaikaus said it after visiting Ashuganj hydraulic power plants.The committee will also study if the recommendation made after the grid failure in 2007 had been implanted.”Our investigation has made a good progress to unearth the cause behind the unusual countrywide power outage caused by Bangladesh-India power substation at Bheramara in Kushtia,” Ahmed Kaikaus added. An unusual power outage took over the entire country as the national grid collapsed two times since 11:30am to midnight on Saturday. Nasrul Hamid, State Minister for Power and Energy, said, the national power grid is in a vulnerable condition and it is unable to tackle any major disaster. “The government is going to appoint a consultancy firm within a month to strengthen the power grid,” he said. The state minister said the firm would be appointed to find out grid faults and also to recommend the ways of improving the grid. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has directed the ministry to find out ways on setting up “Island Grid” or individual grid system, he said, adding, the premier also asked to strengthen the national grid and appoint trained manpower. He said the government is contemplating to set up a smart grid for avoiding any power system disaster like that of Saturday’s collapse. The country’s 30-year old power transmission and distribution network is in a vulnerable condition, the minister said, adding, the distribution network in Rural Electrification Board (REB) is at a great risk. During the tenure of the government, the electricity generation has increased by around 62 percent but the transmission capacity increased by 17 percent only and the distribution line by 11 percent.
