Power supply problems
Md. Abad, Dhaka
The commentary on the power generation scenario (DS Oct 20, by an ex-Director of PDB) makes uneasy reading. There appears to be weaknesses in several areas of the whole system: i) No clear-cut official, long-term policy on power generation for each coming decade; ii) Investment conditionalities and uncertainties in the public and private sectors; iii) Management, operation, and maintenance shortcomings , resulting in systems losses and corrupt practices; iv) Regulatory insensitivity at vertical and horizontal levels, both internal and external; v) Political callousness from the public service point of view; and vi) Inability of regime after regime to bring about healthier changes, with tinges of development fever.We have professional expertise, but it cannot contribute and deliver at the institutional level, for reasons which the public have the right to know. We do carry out system analyses from time to time, in cooperation with other international agencies, but the end results are rather disappointing (specially in the power and energy sectors). What are the bugs, and where are these lingering, in spite of all the good intentions beaming out of benevolent governance? Tata is coming in a big way. This is the time to harness our revised development projects in tandem, to take advantage of the catalytic effect (there is a strong local pressure, watching the stock exchange for new stocks). The performances of the semi-public sector and the corporations are simply not clicking. Too many flies all around, seething with unhealthy contamination! Perhaps the Planning Commission needs a new image, to assist other bodies such as BOI, EPZ activities, SEC, and other new forms of trading and industrial activities Bangladesh is witnessing for a decade now. Governance these days is business oriented, not bureaucratic file-shoving. Where are the secretariat reforms? Free the judiciary, and free the entrenched concentration of power! Let us have more debates on how to get more energy from the energy sector.
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