PM orders 2-hr power outage daily

Dhaka, Sep 5 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday said she asked the Power Division to effect a two-hour outage daily to remind the people how much they had suffered earlier
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"I have ordered the Power Division to enforce load-shedding for an hour in the morning and another hour in the evening so that people do not forget the suffering caused by loadshedding," the Prime Minister said in Parliament. "It helps in a way--it cuts power bill."

She made the comment while answering to queries during the Prime Minister's question time.

Replying to a question by Jatiya Party MP Mujibul Hoque, she said that the month of Ramadan was free of power crisis and stressed minimising power use for boosting production.

While replying to the question posed by Independent MP Fazlul Azim, the Prime Minister talked about her government's plan to increase power production to 24,000 MW and claimed that the current production is 8315 MW.

"We left office in 2001 when the power production was 4300 MW. When we returned to power in 2008, the production was 3200 MW. Power production has come to a normal level due to our prompt measures," Hasina added.

Currently, there are 51 power plants that are producing 3595 MW daily running on gas and oil.

She mentioned the installation of grid line and sub-stations for importing 500 MW of power from India and said, "The power will be available from the middle of next year."

According to the Prime Minister, daily gas production is 2200 mmcf currently, and power stations get 950 mmcf to 1,000 mmcf gas daily.

She hoped another 420 mmcf to 480 mmcf gas will be added to the current supply by next year.

Spaker Abdul Hamid said 100KW power is being produced every day using solar power.