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Severe power crisis grips 16 dists

Industries, cultivation, shrimp farms affected

22 February 2009, 18:00 PM

NATIONAL

Quazi Amanullah, Khulna

Sixteen districts under West Zone Power Distribution Company Limited (WZPDCL) have again been in grip of severe power crisis, hampering cultivation of paddy, production in mills and factories, works in export-oriented fish processing factories and other trade activities. Water supply in Khulna city and industrial units surrounding the city has also been affected by power outages, said a reliable source in Khulna WASA. Most of the areas outside Khulna are likely to face outages for at least 8 to 10 hours a day during peak summer, said Md Kamrul Islam, executive engineer of Khulna Power Station. Frequent load shedding is about to bring economic activities to standstill. Meanwhile, Khulna Power Station (KPS) is facing a dangerous situation due to acute shortage of carbon dioxide gas and fire extinguishing materials. Authorities concerned are yet to take any positive move to procure the important things despite getting allocation of fund seven months ago. Crisis of carbon dioxide gas and fire extinguishing materials may result in enormous damages in case of any big fire, it is learnt. Sources said government allocated only Tk 3 lakh in August last year for purchasing carbon dioxide gas and fire extinguishing tools. But these are yet to be purchased. Abdur Rashid Mandol, acting chief engineer of Khulna Power Station, said Tk 3 lakh is quite insufficient to meet requirements for this purpose. Due to technical glitch, a fire incident occurred at the 110 MW plant of Khulna Power Station on February 15. As a result, the plant went out of order. With this, three of the four plants of KPS are still out of order due to technical glitches. The 110 MW plant has been limping with manifold technical problems since 1984. It has not been overhauled since July 2002 although a power plant requires overhauling every five year. The 60MW plant installed in 1973 and overhauled for the last time in August 1999 has remained shut since July 2006 due to major technical faults. This plant sent to Belgrade in September 2006 for repair works is expected to resume power generation in June this year, executive engineer said. The two 56MW barge mounted power plants of KPS were finally shut down in 2007 as they sustained severe damages caused by frequent fire incidents. Presently, two private owned power plants--50 MW Khulna Power Company Limited (KPCL) and 40MW rental power plant-- are in operation. PDB purchases electricity from the two plants at Tk 14.12 and Tk 15.27 per unit. Executive Engineer Kamrul Islam said if overhauled properly then both 60 and 110 megawatts plants can have the capacity to produce at least 58 and 95 megawatts of electricity for the next six or seven years. He said Tk 200 crore is needed to make the 100MW and 60 MW plants fully fit for normal power generation after properly overhauling them. When asked, acting Chief Engineer Abdur Rashid Mandol blamed the caretaker government for cancelling a proposal for overhauling these two important power plants. He said a huge amount of money can be saved if the two power plants are put into operation after overhauling instead of buying electricity at much higher price from private owned power plants.