State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said on Thursday that it would take some more days to find out the exact reasons behind the failure of the national power grid two days ago, sending much of the country into a blackout for about seven hours.

“Initially it was found that when there was a deficit of power created in the east side and surplus in the west side of the county, the transmission system tripped, leading to the grid failure”, he told reporters while briefing at his ministry on Thursday.

Read: Power supply restored across Bangladesh after 7hrs

He mentioned that the first power plant in Ghorasal station failed following the grid collapse, resulting in a colossal closure of power plants.

But the state minister said no physical damage happened in the grid. 

He said a probe committee of PGCB was working on it while another committee from Power Division would also be formed soon, hoping that the report by the PGCB committee will come in 7 days.

Responding to a question, he referred to remarks by BNP leader Iqbal Hasan Mahmud, a BNP leader and former state minister for power, and  said it would be investigated if the grid failure was a sabotage.

He said how Iqbal Mahmud knows that such incidents of grid failure would take place in the future too.

Nasrul Hamid, however, admitted that the development of the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) did  not take place as it was expected due to Covid-19 pandemic.

Read: Power blackout triggers chaos in Dhaka petrol pumps

“We could not implement many PGCB projects due to the Covid-19 situation. We have been two years behind the schedule of the implementation”, he said, adding that a project for automation of the PGCB has been undertaken.

“We hope, within the next two years we will be able to complete the automation project and then chances of such grid failure will be reduced,” he added.