We Bangladeshis have been riding such a roller coaster of crises of all kinds for the past few years that we haven't taken time out to catch our breaths and 'look at the big picture' of electricity. In fact, we have developed brain strain from looking at the small picture on the television. There may be no such thing as a crisis to end all crises, but at least the electricity crisis should have opened our eyes to how connected everything is from the anklebone to neck bone. But it didn't.

Ideally, you and I create the marketplace and even fill the parliament. Our track record may leave a lot to be desired at times, but we never need to clamor for 'power to the people'. We have it. What we deserve or what we get good or bad. When we ask what government should do about our electricity problem, we are actually asking ourselves what we want? As we examine what has happened in the past few years, we will see why the authorities failed to comply with the objectives of the Energy Policy 1995 or the targets of the Power System Master Plan 1995 or even the Power Policy Statement's (2000) goal for 2005.

Indeed, it might appear to many that we do not have adequate and appropriate policies and program for implementation. Even if they exist, they are there for academic interactions. Some citizens say that the government has responded to our demands for action on an uncoordinated, spot basis, seeking a remedy for the immediate pains we were complaining about the loudest. Now, it is time for us to insist on a thorough health cheek-up. Apparently, we do not have any mysterious, incurable disease (relating to electricity supply and demand). Yet, we are suffering from mental malnutrition. Fortunately, we seem to have everything on our (home) medicine shelf to cure this, if only we take time to read and understand the labels on the medicine bottles. The one thing we have to guard against is reaching for the wrong bottle (as we have been doing over the past four years) and taking a panic dose of wrong medicine.

At times some our politicians prate too much about what we have done about electricity development in the country. In the real world if they were really done our lives would have changed for the better. Instead, in our unrestrained exuberance and pursuit of many goals, we have suddenly created electricity famine, that was never expected of a democratic government. Then there exits an anomalous situation between the urban and rural electricity supply, particularly that are supplied to the Palli Bidyut Samities (PBSs). At times for days and weeks electricity to not supplied to some PBSs but people are to pay a fixed service charge. Some residents of Kansat, Chapainawabganj protested. And for the first time, innocent citizens of Kansat laid down their lives for electricity. At least ten people were killed and over three hundred others wounded in police firing on January 4 and 23, 2006. Instead of sympathizing with the poor rural people's tragedy the State Minister Iqbal Hassan Mahmood said, “I strongly believe there was 'politics' behind Kansat incident” (Energy and Power, February 1, 2006).

While about 144 million people of Bangladesh has become extremely concerned about highly volatile gas and electricity supply and its consequent impact on energy security in the county, the government seems to be unmoved. The overall electricity generation and supply shortages are going to hurt the economy and commerce very badly. Even in the winter months of 2005-06, supply deficit reached almost 1,000 megawatt, if not more. This deficit may even touch 1,800 to 2,000 megawatt in the summer months of the current year, a likely new record indeed! Incidentally, the power demand would exceed 5,000 MW by April-May, 2006 while the average daily supply may remain within 3,200 to 3,500 megawatt. The newly appointed Chairman of BPDB ANM Rezwan rightly said, “Magic impossible”-- if there is no big accident, 3,500 megawatt could be generated. The State Minister for Power is cool and apparently unconcerned about the horrendous supply situation. Only Allah knows best why?

Nonetheless, the Power Division, Ministry of Energy, Power and Mineral resources' (MEPMR) colorful publication of October 2003 depicts a promising development scenario between 2003-2012, which states; (a) an increase in generation capacity of 6,210 MW (from 4,710 MW in 2003 to 9,840 MW in 2012) i.e., an annual increase of 690 MW, an impossibility by any standard in Bangladesh, (b) increase of coverage of electricity from 32 percent in 2003 to 65 percent in 2012 (an increase of 33 percent in 9 years i.e., about 3.7 percent increase annually. These are 'unreal' and unachievable numbers. Yet a colorful publication is a welcome step.

Incidentally, the Power Policy statement, 2000 indicated that the coverage of electricity was less than 20 percent in 2000, but that publication also expected 'electricity for all' by 2020. Questions are asked, how could a 12 percent increase occur in three years without any new generation (through the present government‘s own planning and implementation!) during 2001-2003? Perhaps the government thinks expansion of distribution lines alone under REB/PBSs has rendered this miracle to happen.

At this juncture let me relate a story that illustrate an important point about today's electricity situation. The story goes like this:

The famous creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, once called a taxi in Paris threw in his suitcase and got in after it. Before he could say a word, the driver asked, “Where to Mr. Conan Doyle?” The surprised author said, “You recognized me?” “No”, the driver replied, “I've never seen you or your picture,” “Then how to you know that I ‘am Conan Doyle?” “Well”, the driver said, “I read in the paper that you were vacationing in the South; I noticed you arrived on a train from Marseilles; you have a tan that comes from spending a week or more in the sun; from the ink spot on your middle finger I deduce you are a writer; you have a keen look of a medical man; and the cut of your clothes is English. Putting all these together, I felt surely you must be Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the great Sherlock Holmes stories. Conan Doyle was amazed. “From the way you recognized me from all these small observations, you yourself are the equal to Sherlock Holmes... There is one more thing, said the driver. “What is that?” Conan asked. “Your name is printed on your suitcase”, said the driver.

Related to our electricity problem as a nation, we had to have the situation boldly spelled out for us before we believed what various dues told us even two years ago what was inevitable...the power crisis is coming. Now in retrospect, we see clearly what our government could have deduced sooner. But, unfortunately our semi head of electricity Iqbal Hassan Mahmood haven't appreciated it soon enough -- perhaps not even now. He still now debates through the print and electronic media that the nationwide shortage of electricity is 600 to 700 MW or around! The print media independently writes, “It‘s going to be between 1,500 to 1,800 MW” from March 2006 onwards. We were told that the Power Division looks through a specially made telescope fixed in a reverse way. It is very content with an 80 MW peaking plant at Tongi that operated only 24 hours after its inauguration. What an achievement?

It's time that the government 'thinks' and 'plan' and 'act' to avoid more serious consequences. In the course of coming seven to eight months hardly anything is possible --even through a crash program. They have not time left to repeat the performance of their previous government, a total of 1,750 MW including 1,290 under the IPPs -- and leaving a surplus of 500 MW for the present government. The present government's greatest danger is complacency. Once the headlines disappear, there will be a growing tendency to believe that they don't have an electricity problem - that the name on the suitcase (in Sherlock Holmes story stated above) is somebody else's!

Even if all lights were green now to launch a massive power development program, the government has a stupendous job ahead to meet the country's anticipated electricity demand by 2012. A huge investment to the tune of Tk 48,400 crore would be needed in the next nine-year or around Tk 6,050 crore annually.

We can't even be optimistic about the solution to the country's electric supply problem for many known and unknown reasons (personally I always like to be a positive thinker and optimist, yet now I find difficulty in optimism). As a research scientist, a friend of mine once told me, “If you can define a problem, you have it half solved.” Regrettably, we can't even do so because the electrical system itself is allegedly vacationing in the south, near the Bay of Bengal!

Nuruddin Mahmud Kamal: Former Chairman, Bangladesh Power Development Board.