Parts of rural Bangladesh endured up to 20 hours of power outages on Tuesday as load shedding crossed the 3,000MW mark, once again exposing the rural-urban divide.
Electricity went out in cities as well, but the outages troubled villages far more—starkly contrasting the fact that rural power consumption is much lower than that of urban areas and goes only toward meeting basic daily demands.
Low-income neighborhoods and slums were left in the dark far longer than affluent areas in cities and towns, where high-rises consumed massive amounts of electricity to power air conditioning and illuminate extravagant decorations.
The power crisis intensified on Wednesday after a technical glitch forced the shutdown of a unit at the Rampal power plant, exacerbating weeks of severe supply shortages.
Compounding the crisis, a heatwave struck on Wednesday, blanketing the entire Khulna Division alongside Gopalganj, Rajshahi and Pabna districts.
Bangladesh’s highest maximum temperature of 37.4C was recorded in Jashore on Wednesday while Dhaka’s maximum temperature reached 35C.
‘Villages are bearing the brunt of power shortage, up to 12 hours,’ said Barishal district council administrator Akon Quddusur Rahman.
In Barishal city, power cuts happened intermittently, covering six to eight hours.
In the rural areas of Rajshahi, the situation has hit a painful breaking point.
For people trapped in these remote villages, life has been cast into an unforgiving and exhausting routine.
‘It feels like we have been forgotten. Otherwise, how could power be supplied to us for only five to six hours a day, I wonder,’ said MH Mamun, a resident of Godagari.
Natore Palli Bidyut Samity-1 deputy general manager Md Asaduzzaman said power supply just halved over the last week.
In Bagmara of Rajshahi, residents experienced load shedding for at least 10 hours.
Outdoor workers are the worst affected, for after long hours of exposure to extreme heat, they return home to spend sleepless nights amid frequent power cuts.
‘The heat is already difficult to bear and the power cuts have made things even worse. We cannot sleep properly at night and household activities are constantly disrupted,’ said Abdul Karim, a resident of Rajshahi city.
Rajshahi Poultry Farmers’ Association said that prolonged and frequent power cuts were causing poultry deaths and reducing weight gain among chickens.
Businesses have also been affected as many are relying on generators to continue operations during power outages.
New Age staff correspondent in Chattogram said that factories in Agrabad reported up to six hours of power cuts.
‘Our production has severely been affected,’ said Kazi Kamrul Islam, an officer of Fashion World Limited.
Long power cuts amid a heatwave are also taking a toll on health, causing dehydration, heat exhaustion, and other heat-related illnesses, particularly among children and the elderly.
New Age correspondent in Kushtia reported frequent electricity interruptions with outages often lasting around one to two hours at a time.
Md Rafiq Uddin, a farmer from Kumarkhali, said irregular power supply was affecting crops.
Small traders also reported losses, with Abdul Halim, a shop owner in Bheramara, saying frequent outages were damaging refrigerated goods.
A rice mill owner Kushtia, Abdul Karim, said milling operations were being severely affected due to irregular electricity supply.
‘Frequent power outage is affecting operations, causing production delays and increasing operational costs,’ he said.
At 1:00am on Wednesday, Bangladesh’s overall power demand stood at 16090MW, when the supply was 13070MW.
Power Development Board member Md Zahurul Islam, who is in charge of generation, said that power generation dropped after a unit of Rampal power plant went out of operation on Tuesday following a leak in the boiler.
‘Such technical problems usually take at least four days to be fixed,’ he said.
Having an installed power generation capacity of 29,593MW, Bangladesh currently produces around 5,000MW from gas, followed by around 2,000MW from liquid fuel.
Besides importing over 2,000MW from India, about 5,000MW is being sourced from coal-fired power plants.
Fuel shortage is mainly responsible for limited productions.
PDB Chairman Rezaul Karim, however, rejected the allegations of 20-hour power shortages and denied any discrimination in power distribution.
‘A power outage lasting more than one hour could be indicative of other problems, such as disruptions triggered by storms and high winds or transmission issues,’ he said.
‘We have issued clear instructions that power is to be equally distributed to consumers,’ he added.
An analysis of official power consumption data by the Bangladesh Working Group on Ecology and Development, a non-governmental organization, shows the stark gap between power supply to urban and rural areas.
The per capita electricity consumption in urban areas was 870 units in the 2024–25 financial year, the analysis said, adding that in rural areas, consumption stood at only 213 units.
‘This is a huge gap. It is severely disrupting rural development, limiting people’s means to generate income,’ said BWGED member secretary Hasan Mehedi.
New Age correspondents in Chattogram, Barishal and Kushtia also contributed to this report.
