Power supply has improved significantly in Savar after residents endured nearly a week of prolonged load shedding during an intense heatwave, easing hardship for consumers.
Power officials said electricity supply has been increasing steadily since July 1, leading to a sharp decline in outages across the area.
According to Dhaka Palli Bidyut Samity-1, the utility supplied 400 megawatts (MW) of electricity against a demand of 422 MW at around 2:30 pm on Saturday, leaving a shortfall of just 22 MW.
Meanwhile, Dhaka Palli Bidyut Samity-3 reported no load shedding, as it was able to meet its entire demand of 307 MW.
Officials attributed the improved situation partly to lower industrial electricity consumption during the government holiday, which has helped stabilise the power supply. They added, however, that the situation has improved markedly compared with a week ago, when outages were at their peak.
Parveen Akter, a resident of Shimultala, said electricity supply had remained relatively stable over the past two days.
"A week ago, the situation was unbearable. Daily life was severely disrupted as load shedding lasted eight to 10 hours a day. We were without electricity for almost an hour after every hour of supply," she said.
Saiful Islam, a resident of Jamsing, said the power situation has improved considerably, although the prolonged outages experienced a week earlier caused significant suffering.
Senior General Manager of Dhaka Palli Bidyut Samity-1, Aktaruzzaman Laskar, said the utility recorded only 22 MW of load shedding on Saturday against a demand of 422 MW.
"Power supply has remained much better since July 1. A week earlier, however, the situation was quite severe, with daytime load shedding reaching as high as 125 MW," he said.
Laskar added that the utility's service area typically records an average daily electricity demand of around 480 MW.
