The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

Country's power generation came down to 3,324 megawatts, the lowest in recent years, resulting in nagging outages even on the weekend holiday yesterday.

This generation figure was recorded at 7:00 pm, the time treated as the highest peak hour of the day.

In July last year, the average daily generation was about 3,500 MW.

Power Development Board (PDB) officials claimed they could not produce about 900 MW due to gas shortages while another 300 MW for a number of plants remaining under maintenance liedown.

According to official sources, the PDB and other utilities had to go for load shedding of more than 1,000 MW although the demand was relatively lower at the weekend.

Normally, electricity demand remains lower at the weekend than that on working days when offices and industrial units consume huge power.

The PDB officials said that the country would experience more outages from tomorrow with work beginning in full swing.

Official sources, however, said that the power-generation situation worsened in the recent months because of the "failure of the authorities concerned in carrying out maintenance for a number of power plants".