Thousands of people were compelled to break the curfew across the country on Sunday to go to the nearest electricity supply and distribution offices to recharge their prepaid power meters.
Some of them had been without electricity for days since their meters ran out of money but they could not recharge online due to the suspension of the internet service since Thursday night.
There are about 4.5 crore electricity connections, roughly half of them using pre-paid meters across Bangladesh. Bangladesh鈥檚 six power distributors said that a direct visit to their local offices could solve the problem momentarily.
鈥榃e are compelled to choose from two very difficult options 鈥� to get baked at home without electricity and risk getting shot trying to recharge prepaid meters,鈥� said Rashida Akter, 46.
Rashida was among a thousand males and females who gathered at the Gulshan 1 office of the Dhaka Electric Supply and Company Ltd and waited there for three to five hours to recharge her meter with Tk 1,000.
The Desco office in Gulshan 1 is located on the Badda-Gulshan link road, the site of relentless clashes between protesters seeking quota reforms in the civil service and law enforcers.
The place in fact witnessed ceaseless violence between July 19 and 20. Clashes broke out at the place on Sunday morning as well. Scores of police members patrolled the area in riot gear as the ordinary electricity consumers stood in a queue outside the DESCO office at Gulshan-1.
鈥業 am the survivor of an accident that fractured both my legs, which needed to be screwed together through operations. I cannot wait long on my feet,鈥� said Rashida at about 3:00pm.
Rashida chose to come to the office from his residence at Mohakhali TB gate keeping male members of her family back at home. She thought sending males outside during the curfew would be too risky.
Some of the people were seen waiting in the queue since 10:00am after travelling through areas such as Badda and Rampura where law enforcers opened fire on the protesters on Sunday morning.
The unfortunate electricity consumers, in fact, took the risk of going into jail for a year or getting fined or punished with the both for breaking the curfew.
It was seen that the ill-staffed DESCO office took long time to get a code to the electricity consumers who would have to insert it into their meters to recharge their meters with Tk 1,000.
鈥榃ith recharging the meter, I will get electricity supply for maximum two days,鈥� said Arafat Nur Siyam, who lost power connection on Sunday.
The curfew has been in place since Friday amidst clashes that killed over 140 people over the past week. The curfew will be in effect without any break for an indefinite period from 5:00pm on Sunday.
Farhana Haque Asha, a resident of Middle Badda, was probably the unluckiest among the crowd for she had to visit the DESCO office twice by 3:00pm on Sunday.
The first recharging she got was automatically deducted soon after she inserted the code to pay for her previous loan.
DESCO officials said that 6.5 lakh of their 12.75 lakh electricity consumers were using pre-paid meters.
鈥楥onsidering the suffering of the consumers, we raised the limit to Tk 2,000 for single phase and Tk 5,000 for three-phase power lines from Tk 1,000,鈥� said Abdullah Noman, managing director, Dhaka Electricity and Power Distribution Company Limited.
The DPDC has 16 lakh power consumers and of them 9 lakh use pre-paid power meters.
The Bangladesh Power Development Board has about 22 lakh prepaid electricity meter users out of their total 42 lakh consumers.
Power and energy state minister Nasrul Hamid on Sunday told journalists that he passed an order giving two days for recharging to all prepaid electricity meter users.
