Editorial
Massive power breakdown
No ad-hoc measures would do
THE major nationwide electricity failure on Saturday came like a bolt from a clear sky with no gale or cyclone in the vicinity whatsoever. It was a mechanical failure at the national power grid originating at Ashuganj and it took hours for the PDB technicians to repair the glitch and bring back normalcy in life. Our guess is there is hardly a functional auto-reactive mechanism in place to arrive at a solution within the shortest possible time. By all means, it was an irritant of a large scale as day to day work almost came to a halt at many places. Among the mentionable sufferings, trade and commerce activities and hospital services were severely disrupted because of the obstruction. To say the least, the experience made the citizens ponder anew the dismal state of our existing electricity generation and distribution system.
It is not a comfortable realisation that Saturday's was a massive power failure for the second time since November 16, which came in the wake of cyclone Sidr. To have another failure of such magnitude so soon cannot be explained away, especially when in a modern world, computarised systems are increasing efficiency level almost to the point of flawlessness.
Here we have to say that following some measures taken by this government, the margin of power deficit has been markedly reduced in the past months. But the repeated power grid failures only indicate that the ills of the sector remain deep rooted and multi-faceted. Hence, we strongly believe the entire gamut of electricity generation and distribution system has to be restructured under a long-term action plan. Patch works will solve immediate problems but it will not go a long way to meet our demand for uninterrupted supply of electricity.
We also feel that Dhaka being the capital and hub of business, political, educational, administrative and diplomatic activities, the city cannot remain shut off from electricity for hours. Hence it would be prudent to develop a fall-back power supply system along with the urgent repair and modernisation of the existing national grids.
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