The industrial area of Narsingdi is facing a severe gas and electricity crisis. Due to lack of gas pressure in the pipeline, production and operations of hundreds of textile, dyeing mills, ceramic and other medium-heavy factories and CNG stations have almost come to a standstill. This long-term and severe energy shortage has been created due to the accident at the LNG terminal in Maheshkhali.
Narsingdi, one of the country’s industrial areas, has been hit hard by a gas and electricity crisis. Narsingdi supplies about 70 percent of the country’s textile demand. There are more than 3,000 textile, dyeing and spinning mills in the district. Business leaders said that several factories have stopped production due to the gas crisis.
At a time when businessmen are trying to recover from the crisis of natural and man-made disasters one after another in the past few days, the current extreme crisis in the energy sector has left them frustrated. According to entrepreneurs, the current situation has led to an increase in gas availability and electricity load shedding in the industrial area. Local industrialists and business leaders said that due to this unprecedented lack of energy, the industrial zone of Narsingdi is suffering an average financial loss of 400 to 500 crore taka every day. Production in dyeing, printing, textile and spinning mills has almost completely come to a standstill.
Even though a month has passed since the end of the previous fiscal year and the new month has entered, factory owners are facing extreme financial crisis as the production cycle has stopped. Several entrepreneurs, on condition of anonymity, expressed concern that there is no production in the factories, so sales have also stopped. In this situation, it is not possible for any factory owner to pay the monthly salaries of workers and employees.
Anisur Rahman Bhuiyan, director of Bhuiyan Textile and Calender Mills, said that the factory’s production has been almost stopped for two weeks now due to gas shortage. A minimum pressure of 10 PSI of gas is required to run the factory. Only one to two PSI is available. Production cannot be maintained at such a low pressure. It is possible to keep the factory running for one to two hours at night with the help of cylinder gas.
In this context, Nizam Uddin Bhuiyan Liton (CIP), chairman of Bangladesh Textile Dyeing and Printing Association Narsingdi and owner of Madhabdi Dyeing Finishing Mills Limited, said that 75 percent of Bangladesh’s textile demand is met by fabrics made in Narsingdi. Now, due to the lack of gas and electricity, about 80 percent of the mills in Narsingdi and Madhabdi areas have closed.
Abdullah Al Mamun, the spokesperson of Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA) and Managing Director of Abed Textile Processing Mills Limited in Narsingdi, said that the industrial zone of Narsingdi is losing Tk 400 to 500 crore every day. The traders are already frustrated by the horrors of various natural and man-made disasters in the country in the past. On top of this, there is now the serious problem of excessive load shedding of electricity and gas. Where we used to say that there is a shortage of these, now there is a vacuum. If the vacuum that is currently prevailing in getting gas and electricity continues, then public anger may arise someday.
