Find long-term solution to power crisis
Energy experts urge govt
Star Business Report
Speakers at a seminar yesterday suggested organising a national dialogue with all political parties and energy experts participating in it to find out a concrete long-term solution to the country's power sector crisis. The short-term initiatives that have been taken by the government will not do unless political interference in the sector is stopped, they opined. The seminar on Power Shortage: Mitigation with Shortest Time' was organised by Energy Professionals Association of Bangladesh (EPAB) at its office at Karwan Bazar in Dhaka yesterday. ANH Akhter Hossain, secretary for Power Division was present as chief guest at the seminar while ANM Rejwan, chairman of Power Development Board (PDB), MAK Azad, president of EPAB spoke at the seminar, among others. STS Mahmood, former chairman of Dhaka Electricity Supply Authority (DESA) presented a keynote paper at the seminar. Criticising the government's three- year master plan for power development, the speakers said the plan has no specific directions that how the government will meet the demand of electricity for everybody by 2020. They said there are seven projects targeting generation of about 2200 MW electricity in the action plan but nothing is moving on. If these were implemented in the past the present crisis could be averted, they added. To develop the power division they made an advice to give full administrative and financial authority to the chairman of Power Development Board to act as its chief executive. The PDB chief should be accountable to the minister of power for his actions, they also suggested. The power division secretary called upon all to come forward to protect any misuse of electricity. "The gap between power demand and supply is very natural," ANH Akhter Hossain said, admitting that the recent master plan for mitigating power crisis lacks any transparent direction on how the crisis will be solved. "Political interference in the power sector is one of the main obstacle in developing the power sector," said S T S Mahmood in his keynote paper. He said, "All political parties should be committed not to allow interference in the evaluation and selection of investor on any particular project in the interest of power sector development." Political parties should also make a commitment that no programme will be affected and allowed to suffer due to change of government, he added.
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