The government has directed the electricity distribution companies to take necessary steps for ensuring power supply to the industrial units at the 100 proposed special economic zones across the country. State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid last week endorsed an official directive in this regard. “The special economic zone will get top priority for electricity supply,” Hamid said in the official directive. He also approved a decision to provide electricity connections to industrial units through advertisements. However, insiders observed that it would be very challenging to ensure electricity for the special economic zone as the capacity of the power distribution and transmission system is not up to the mark. A total of 10,496 industrial units so far applied to get additional 1,116MW of electricity from four distributions companies. The applicants have so far used 79MW of electricity, officials concerned said. During a recent meeting, Nasrul Hamid expressed concern over the poor transmission and distribution system, saying that the system must be improved to handle around 24,000MW of electricity the government targets to generate by 2021. “The government would face trouble if we fail to improve the transmission and distribution system quickly,” he pointed out. He observed that the transmission and distribution system in Dhaka is more vulnerable than in other areas. At an internal meeting, Power Division secretary Monowar Islam mentioned that the distribution capacity should be two times and transmission capacity three times higher than the generation capacity. “But the country’s distribution system can handle only 8000MW against the total of generation around 13,000MW,” he said.
