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Electricity load-shedding has started pinching people again with temperatures rising to the zenith and power shedding load over a couple of days of the ongoing sizzling summer, said sources.
The capital, Dhaka, experienced the highest temperature of this year Saturday as the mercury soared up to 40.1degrees Celsius, aggravating the plight of commoners, according to Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD).
The highest temperature in the country was recorded in Chuadanga on the day with the mercury shooting up to 42 degrees Celsius, BMD sources said.
"Very severe to severe heatwave is sweeping over the districts of Chuadanga, Dhaka, Tangail, Manikganj Faridpur, Rajshahi, Sirajganj and Jashore," the BMD stated.
Mild to moderate heatwave is sweeping elsewhere over the country -- and it may continue.
State-run electricity marketing and distribution companies have been enforcing load-shedding to cope with the soaring peak-hour demand for electricity.
According to an official, state-run Dhaka Electric Supply Company Ltd enforced around 15 megawatts of load-shedding in its jurisdiction areas covering Gulshan, Mirpur and Uttara.
"Super grid of state-run Power Grid Bangladesh was overloaded at Rampura-Bashundhara substations, resulting in the forced load-shedding," said the official.
People from both city and urban areas are suffering from on-again, off-again power supply.
Businesses and commercial operations are also being disrupted badly due to the outages of electricity in major parts of the country.
The interim government's decision to divert around 150 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) to industries from this month might have reduced power generation from gas-fired power plants, resulting in load-shedding, said sources.
State-run Petrobangla supplied around 1,042mmcfd gas to gas-guzzling power plants Friday against the overall demand for 2,420mmcfd of gas for power plants, according to official data.
Previously, Petrobangla had allocated around 1,200mmcfd gas for power plants but a meeting of the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources (MPEMR) last week decided to squeeze the fuel supply to around 1,050mmcfd, close to Saturday's supply level, for power plants at least for the next four months from May to August.
Azizjst@yahoo.com