Load-shedding for up to about four hours a day has become a aregulkar feature since beginning of the summer, residents and factory owners told this correspondent.

Production in Sundarban Textile Mills Ltd, the lone big industry in the district, is also being interrupted frequently due to load shedding, causing heavy loss to it.

Small industries and other business establishments are also being badly affected. The situation deteriorated in recent weeks. Once gone, nobody knows when power will return, they said.

People in different upazilas staged demonstrations demanding smooth power supply, but to no effect.

Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, Satkhira Chamber of Commerce and Industries President Sheikh Azahar Hossain said, frequent load shedding and voltage fluctuation are damaging machinery in at least 39 fish processing plants, four cold storages and over 46 ice factories.

"Satkhira is the largest shrimp producing area in the country which earns a huge amount of foreign currency every year by exporting frozen food. Shrimp export will be hampered this year as the processing plants are suffering due to frequent load shedding", he said.

President of Bangladesh Shrimp Cultivators Association Dr. Aftabuzzaman, a former state minister, said huge quantities of shrimp get rotten due to load shedding, incurring heavy losses to the owners of processing plants.

Director of Satkhira Ice and Cold Storage Ltd., Atiar Rahman said, cold storages now keep generators stand-by as the Power Development Board (PDB) can not ensure smooth supply of electricity. This doubles the cost.

Explaining, he said a cold storage can run only for five hours with the electricity produced by a generator using one barrel of diesel. This costs around Tk 5000 against Tk 3500 for electricity supplied by PDB.

Managing Director of Sonali Ice and Cold Storage Ltd., MA Jalil said, the cold storage industry is becoming a losing concern due to use of diesel generators. If this situation continues, they will have to increase preservation charge of potato in cold storages. The cold storages till now charge Tk. 180 to 190 per bag of potato, he said.

Sundarban Textile Mills CBA President Abdullah Sardar said, the mill is incurring a loss of about Tk 50,000 a day as production is interrupted due to frequent load shedding,

An official of Satkhira PDB said, peak hour (5pm to 11pm) demand for electricity in the district is 18 megawatt but only one third of it is supplied from the National Grid.

"We have no immediate alternative to load shedding and keep areas in dark for hours alternatively", he said, adding power is distributed by central load dispatch centre and nothing can be done locally.

"We have nothing to do to improve the situation unless supply from the National Grid is increased", he said.

Besides, supply is interrupted at times due to ongoing rehabilitation work in distributing lines at places.

The power crisis is more in rural areas under Palli Bidyut Samity (REB. Abdur Rahim, a grocer at Kalaroa, said "We even do not get satisfactory reply about power outage from REB, which blames PDB for the crisis because it gets electricity supply from PDB.