More than 30 million consumers are still without power due to the impact of Cyclone Rimal. The electricity department is working to start these connections quickly.
This was informed in a press release sent by the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources today at 5:30 pm on Tuesday.
According to the notification, more than three crore three lakh customers of the country’s largest electricity distribution company, Rural Electricity Board (REB), were cut off due to the impact of Cyclone Rimal. Out of this, about 1 crore 72 lakh connections have been restored. 1 crore 31 lakh customers are still disconnected.
REB supplies electricity to most of the villages in the country. The electricity department said that more than 30 thousand workers including REB’s contractors and own manpower are working in the field to restore all connections. Efforts are on to restore power to 60 percent of the outages by tonight and a total of 80 percent by Wednesday. It may take longer as the rest of the customers have to work from home to home. According to preliminary information, the amount of damage to REB due to Cyclone Rimal is Tk 103 crore 33 lakh.
Westzone Power Distribution Company (Ozopadico) supplies electricity to urban areas outside Dhaka. Out of their 15 lakh 48 thousand 154 thousand customers, 14 lakh 3 thousand 526 customers are getting electricity now. 1 lakh 44 thousand 628 customers are still without electricity. In this cyclone, Ozopadiko has suffered a loss of 5 crore 7 lakh 81 thousand rupees.