With a heat wave sweeping the country for about a fortnight in the absence of usual monsoon rains, sufferings of the city dwellers have worsened due to frequent outages of power when they need it all the more.

Increased consumption of electricity at houses, offices, markets and other establishments to operate cooling devices is rather leading to repeated power cuts and for longer duration.

Meanwhile, three days into its introduction, the daylight saving time (DST) measure does not appear to have improved this situation.

With the mercury hovering around 35 degrees Celsius in the capital for the last several days, frequent power outages badly affect normal life and activities.

Residents of different areas of the capital alleged that they are experiencing power cuts five to six times a day, each lasting at least an hour.

The areas include Dhanmondi, Uttara, Mirpur, Kalabagan, Moghbazar, Khilgaon, Goran, Shahjahanpur, Mohammadpur, Gendaria, Hazaribagh, Sutrapur, Malibagh and Naya Paltan.

Power sector officials however blamed the unusual rise in demand for power because of the excessive heat for the power supply disruption.

" Frequent load shedding and power outage are turning out to be part of our daily life," said Saidur Rahman, a resident of Raja Bazar.

" When I come out of my house during the daytime, I feel like being engulfed by fire, and it is equally difficult to stay home at night due to power outage," he added.

Many others spoke of similar sufferings.

Contacted, Power Development Board (PDB) sources said load shedding stood at 638 megawatts (MW) yesterday.

Power generation in the country totalled 3,750 MW yesterday against the demand for 4,500 MW.

Unofficial estimates however put the demand for power at around 5,000 MW.

Around 347 MW of power could not be generated due to poor gas supply to many power plants.

In the capital, about 1,480 MW of power was supplied yesterday against the demand for around 1,600 MW during peak hours, the sources said.

"Although we are quite used to load-shedding, the situation has become unbearable in the past few days," said Nazrul Islam, a resident of Gandaria.

A PDB official seeking anonymity said, " Saving electricity through DST measure is not visible largely since we have a huge gap between power generation and demand. The only way to improve the power situation is to increase generation."

Met office sources said the highest temperature in the country yesterday was recorded in Rajshahi-- 38.2 degrees Celsius.

The hot spell may continue for one more day.

Rain is likely in 2-3 days, they said.

-The Daily Star