Bangladesh experienced a total of 1915 MW of load shedding on Tuesday, the first day of a new era of area-wise planned power cuts announced by the government.
Shamim Hasan, newly promoted director, public relations, of the state-owned Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), confirmed.
He said: “We generated a total of 12,442 MW of electricity against a demand for 14,400 MW. The load shedding was planned to be 1915 MW to cover the gap between demand and supply."
Dhaka metropolis and its adjoining areas started facing power outages on Tuesday morning.
Following a high-level meeting at the prime minister’s office on Monday, Prime Minister’s Energy Advisor Dr Tawfiq-e-Elahi Choedhury announced the Bangladesh government’s plan to resort to two hours of power cuts daily in each zone to tackle the energy crisis affecting electricity generation in the country.
Later in the day, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid apprised reporters of the revised decision of one hour of load shedding daily.
"Area-wise, we will go for an hour of power cut daily across the country, to start with. If needed, the decision will be revisited after a week," he said.
Following the government’s decision, different power distribution entities – Dhaka Power Distribution Company Limited and Dhaka Electric Supply Company Limited – published their area-wise outage plans.
Residents of some areas, however, alleged that they had to experience frequent outages beyond the planned load shedding.
