The government has decided to carry out area-based load shedding across the country to tackle the power crisis. This load shedding can be up to two hours. And from now on petrol pumps in the country will be closed for one day a week.
Besides, the government has also decided to temporarily suspend the production of diesel-based power plants to curb costs. Prime minister's advisor on power, energy and mineral resources, Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury said this on Monday.
This decision was taken at a coordination meeting on energy and power at the prime minister’s office in the capital’s Tejgaon area on Monday. Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury disclosed the decisions to newspersons after the meeting.
He said the government has decided to reduce power generation to curb costs. Production of diesel-based power plants will be suspended temporarily from today (Monday). This is a temporary decision. Everything will be back to normal after the global situation improves.
The energy advisor said, “The world is passing through a war situation. The war in Ukraine is affecting us.”
Tawfiq-e-Elahi further said, “Even the countries with adequate wealth are carrying out load shedding. It’s been carried out even in the UK and Australia. We are trying to reduce the production to bring down the cost to a tolerable level. Diesel-based power production has been suspended for the time being. It will save a lot. We must keep it in mind that the price of diesel has skyrocketed.”
“We think there will be a shortage of 1000-1500 megawatts of electricity. This can lead to load shedding up to one to one and a half hours a day. There may be load shedding even up to two hours in some places. But for the greater interest of the country in this calamitous time in the world, we all have to come forward.
Speaking to the newspersons, state minister for power Nasrul Hamid said, “People in a specific area will be informed in advance in case of power cut in that area. We are giving highest priority to the industrial sector.”
He also said that one to two hours of load shedding will be carried out in the next one week. This decision may change after assessing the situation.
The state minister further said, “From now on petrol pumps in the country will be closed for one day a week until further notice. But, how and in what process this decision will be carried out will be revealed later.”
He said that the government is also thinking about closing the petrol pumps in the port areas two days a week. It has also been decided to for government-private offices to work virtually save electricity. The prime minister's principal secretary Ahmad Kaikaus said the government is also considering reducing office time at government organisations. The Ministry of Public Administration will coordinate the issue of conducting office activities virtually.
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