Rajshahi power office besieged
Rajshahi city dwellers yesterday demanded uninterrupted electricity supply and uninstalling "faulty" digital meters that are producing "ghostly" power bills.
Hundreds of people, including women with brooms in hands, staged demonstration and besieged Rajshahi Zonal office of Power Development Board (PDB) around 11:00am.
Under the banner of 'Rajshahi Rakkha Sangram Parishad (RRSP)', the agitators, including political activists, social, cultural and development activists, held a rally at the PDB office's main gate blocking the road for one and a half hours till 12:30pm.
Speakers at the rally said people of the district has been experiencing 8-10 hours of load shedding every day, causing immense sufferings to all section of the people, including farmers, students and businessmen.
They blamed PDB officials for replacing old meters by new digital meters that are producing, in some cases, higher bills than the previous.
They alleged that the PDB officials are still distributing the "faulty" digital meters though some local lawmakers last month asked them to stop the new fitting.
Speakers also blamed State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Muhammad Enamul Huq for creating discrimination in distribution of power in Rajshahi district from the national grid.
Though Rajshahi is the divisional headquarters having a plenty of educational institutions, it does not get proper share of electricity.
If 50MW of power is allocated for four districts--Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj, Naogaon and Natore, only 8MW is allocated for Rajshahi while equal amount of power from the rest of the megawatts is distributed among three other districts, said Jamat Khan, general secretary of RRSP.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments