<i>Water, power crises grip port city</i>
The city dwellers put their containers in a long queue to collect water in Ambagan area in the port city on Monday. Water crisis begins ahead of summer as Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) is unable to supply adequate water against the demand.Photo: Zobaer Hossain Sikder
The city dwellers are facing acute crises of water as well as power ahead of the summer due to failure of Wasa and PDB to increase generation against the rising demands. Though Raozan and Shikalbaha power plants resumed generation 10 days ago, the consumers of Chittagong Power Development Board (PDB) have been facing around 250 megawatt loadshedding during the peak hours at night. The loadshedding is also hampering lifting of underground water by Chittagong Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) and deep tube-wells sunk privately. Syed Kamal Hossain of Halishahar said they cannot lift water using the electric motor due to huge loadshedding. He said the poor supply of Wasa water forced him to sink a deep tube-well at a huge cost. But, frequent power outage hampers water lifting by the deep tube-well causing tenants of my four-storey building acute water crisis, he added. Kamal said they face water and power crises that deepen in the summer to add sufferings to the city dwellers. Wasa sources said demand for the water increases from 500 million littre per day (mld) to 550mld in the summer. But, the Wasa with 72 deep tube-wells now can supply only 200mld, which is 40 percent of the total demand. It will take two and three years to get benefits from Wasa's undergoing Karnaphuli and Madunaghat projects, they said. The Wasa Chief Engineer Mohammad Shafiullah said the situation is worsening as the level of water going down day by day along with the rising demand. “We are taking preparation to maintain the existing production uninterrupted with procuring 20 electric generators. Of them, installation of 10 generators will be possible within March 31, he said. “Besides, we are trying to manage some express line from the PDB to maintain the water lifting in the upcoming peak season,” he added. On the other hand, PDB would get around 300MW power during the peak hours at night from its 12 units of five power plants. One unit with capacity of 210MW of Raozan Thermal Power Plant is generating on an average 100MW power since February 21. It could resume generation with restoration of gas supply since Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited (CUFL) tripped the same day. Though CUFL resumed its operation on Monday, gas supply to the Raozan plant could be maintained to continue power generation when Karnaphuli Fertiliser Company (Kafco) went into overhauling for one month, sources said. Mentionable, one unit at Raozan plant remained shutdown since October and another from November last year due to shortage of gas supply. The PDB is now also running the 116MW-capacity Shikalbaha Power Plant after getting gas connection from CUFL and generating on an average 30MW power to ease the power crisis to some extent. In this regard, Chittagong PDB Chief Engineer (Generation) Abu Taher said they are getting the gas on temporary basis and will have to stop generation at the Raozan and Shikalbaha plants after resumption of production at Kafco.
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