4-hour power outage in 7 ministries

One of the buildings in the secretariat that houses seven ministries suffered a four-hour long power cut on Wednesday.

The other buildings in the compound also suffered similar outages, Public Works Directorate Executive Engineer Shamsul Alam said.

“Except for building number 4, in other six buildings Dhaka east and Dhaka west grid provide power supply. The building 4 is powered only by the east grid,” he said.

“On Wednesday there was a trip in the east grid, which resulted in a four-hour outage from 9am to 1pm,” he added.

“The other buildings got power from the west grid.”

The engineer said voltage instability had damaged some wiring in building 4.

“Since, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will hold office here on Thursday, so we checked the entire wiring and fixed it.”

Hasina is scheduled to inspect the land ministry on Thursday.

A generator supported the three lifts in the building during the outage period.

The day’s work was badly hampered in the seven ministries housed in the nine floors of the building.

An officer, seeking anonymity, said most of the staff could not work in the dark. Many left the building and went to other buildings to relax.

There have been regular power cuts over the past month as gas crisis has reduced power production.

According to the Power Development Board the nation’s power production is 6,500MW per day, which leaves a shortfall of 500MW.

On July 18 the power plants produced 7,418MW. There were no outages anywhere in the country on that day, PDB claimed.

By this account output has dropped almost 1,000 MW in the two months since then.

Earlier State Minister for Power Nasrul Hamid said gas extracted every day is either used in power production or fertiliser production.

“Right now the fertiliser factories are operating in full swing, so the power production had to be cut down,” he said.