The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

The 80-MW Tongi peaking power plant that tripped on Sunday morning following gas leakage in cooling system resumed operation at 9:10 pm the same day, but another now shut down.

Official sources said the 100-megawatt Baghabari plant was forced into shutdown yesterday at 5:41 pm when its gas supply was found low.

"We had to shut down Baghabari plant for low pressure in gas supply," said a senior official of the state-owned Power Development Board (PDB).

The country experienced more than 1000-MW load shedding due to a huge shortage in electricity generation.

The PDB and independent power producers (IPPs) jointly produced about 3,400 megawatts against an officially recognised demand for 4,450 megawatts of power.

But industry-insiders believe the demand is more than 5,000 MWs. But the authorities concerned always show a lower figure to hide the actual power shortage.

For poor electricity supply, many areas in the capital city had to experience 4-5 hours of power cuts in different spells. The outage situation in port city Chittagong is worse still.