Frequent power cuts at both day and night amid the scorching heat and sweltering humidity has virtually crippled the life of city people.

Sanyat Hossain, a candidate of the ongoing Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examination from Wari, said: "The situation has just become infuriating to unbearable. Due to power outages, my results might not turn out to be as good as I expect."

Exasperated with the load-shedding, Mohammad Hafeez from Rampura told this correspondent that he has not been able to sleep properly for the last few days.

"Although we are pretty much used to the load-shedding, things have become utterly intolerable for the past week or so. I could not sleep the whole night yesterday with the electricity going off in every hour or so throughout the night," said Hafeez.

Residents of Swamibagh, Golapbagh, Jashimuddin Road, East Rampura, Shantinagar, Chowdhurypara, Malibagh, Bashabo, Madartek, Khilgaon, Puaran Paltan, Mirpur, Shankar, Mohammadpur, Tejgaon and Paribagh are the worst sufferers.

According to sources from Dhaka Electric Supply Authority (Desa), daily demand of electricity during this time of the year rises from around 1,500 MW to 1,800 MW in the city due to the extreme hot weather while the current supply is 1,100 to 1,200 MW, leaving a shortage of around 600 to 700 MW each day.

Although Desa is obliged to reserve around 150 to 200 MW of electricity for the VIP areas, even that has become virtually impossible under the current conditions, said an official from Desa seeking anonymity.

The trickle-down effect of the power outages is hampering production in factories as well as office works. Mechanical engineering shops, laundry, motor workshops, medial clinics, computer compose centres and CNG refuelling stations are the worst victims.

Fish preservation has become very difficult due to shortage of ice as the factories cannot produce required amount of ice needed for preservation. Fish traders are facing severe difficulties in preserving fresh fish supplies coming from different districts.

Shahadat Hossain, owner of a laundry store at Gopibagh, said power went out just 5 minutes after he opened his shop at 10:00am on Wednesday. Electricity came back at around 12:30pm only to go out again after 5 minutes, for another hour of outage.

"There is a huge pile of clothes lying out there and I cannot iron them due to load-shedding. And now all my infuriated customers are reproaching me," said Hossain.

Shamim, an employee of Canada-Bangla CNG workshop, a gas refuelling station in Karwan Bazar, told this correspondent that they have to keep the station closed almost half the day due to the power outages.

"Power goes out almost once in every two hours, and once it does it would not come back before at least another hour or so," said Shamim. "It is obviously hampering the business but I cannot feel enough compassion for the drivers and their passengers who have to wait for all those hours in this heat to refuel their cars with CNG."

The power failures in the recent weeks have also put its mark on the health care sector, stalling the operations of a good number of health and diagnostic centres in Dhaka.

Although most of the privately owned medial diagnostic centres are equipped with power generators, a vast number of other private clinics and public hospitals that are facing severe complications in their daily operations.

Tanvir Alam, a retired government official, who suffered a heart attack Tuesday night, was rushed to a diagnostic centre at Paribagh, only to find the centre closed for outage.

Alam was in urgent need of a computerised tomography scanning and his family rushed him to another diagnostic centre in Elephant Road and found the area completely blacked out for load-shedding. Finally, they were lucky enough to get tests done at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital that night.

"We had to spend around four hours for the CT-scan that night, and thank to the almighty that the power did not go out during that time," said Nadia Sultana, daughter of Alam.