The recently introduced daylight savings time (DST) has brought no comfort to the people, psychological or physical, as it has not changed anything ostensibly. Power outages continue as frequently and as erratically as before and shops and malls, barring some, do not put their shutters down till late in the evening.

Daylight savings time in western countries are directly related to change of seasons, which makes sense. But in Bangladesh, its introduction for the first time ever is aimed to meet the exigency of a particular situation , namely to save electricity. But the savings calculated by power officials in the last few days is insignificant compared to overall demand and supply in the country.

"We could save 5 per cent of electricity from our allocation which is around 60 MW. It did not prove to be very fruitful in terms of saving electricity," a top official of a electricity distributing agency told The Independent yesterday requesting not to quote him.

Ataul Masud, managing director of DPDC said that after introduction of daylight savings time, they could save 61 MW on June 21, 64.76 MW on June 22 and 61.96 MW on June 23 during peak hours. Saleh Ahmed, Managing Director of DESCO told The Independent that they could save 30-28 MW on an average for last three days. Earlier, on Sunday last state minister for energy and power told reporters that through introduction of DST the power ministry saved 200 MW around the country.

Since the declared objective of DST is to save electricity during peak hours, people would naturally want to know to what extent they would benefit from the new schedule, and whether load shedding would be less. If the new time does not meet their expectation it would only bring disappointment, an expert said.

If the volume of power saving is minimal, as it appears now, then one could say that this amount could as well be saved through implementing the load staggering programme with the help of the ministry of Industry and Labour. "AS we failed to control the shopping malls owners to close the shop at the stipulated time, it has not helped and these establishments consume around 200 MW during peak hours" , he said. The expert also said that office time could be changed or staggered to save electricity, he added.

Aiming to save 200-300 MW of electricity in the evening peak hours by setting clock an hour ahead on June 19, the government introduced the DST on a trial basis in the country to closely monitor the situation to ascertain the real impact of the daylight savings time.

An official of DESCO however told The Independent that the DST would help them face the situation as through saved power they would be able to maintain the system at a stable level. "It also helps us to control or stop cutting those lines which are usually sacrificed during the period of low frequency,to maintain the system in order

According to the power ministry, DPDC has engaged 64 monitoring teams for its 32 divisions and DESCO 27 teams to monitor the situation.

They will also monitor the shopping malls to see whether the malls open and close as per announcement.

Professor Nurul Islam of BUET told The Independent that the DST has made a great impact on overall lifestyle, but in terms of energy saving the government may not show any significant change as the gap of demand and supply is huge.

- The Independent