Police halted a protest march arranged by three associate bodies of the BNP — Jatiyatabadi Jubo Dal, Swechchasebak Dal, and Chhatra Dal — near Rampura Bridge in the capital for the sake of maintaining law and order. When the march reached the bridge from Nayapaltan around 12:35 pm, a large number of police blocked the way with barricades and urged the leaders of the three organisations to cooperate. Later, a six-member delegation of the protesters was allowed to go to the Indian High Commission to submit a memorandum. The delegation members included Jatiyatabadi Jubo Dal central president Monayem Munna, general secretary Nurul Islam Nayan, Jatiyatabadi Swechchasebak Dal president SM Jilani, general secretary Rajib Ahsan, Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal president Rakibul Islam Rakib and general secretary Nasir Uddin Nasir. Earlier, the three associate bodies of the BNP began their road march towards the Indian High Commission in Dhaka on Sunday morning to protest the attack on the Bangladesh mission in Agartala and the desecration of the country's national flag. The programme was also intended to register protests against what the party describes as an Indian plot to incite communal riots in Bangladesh. Thousands of leaders and activists from the three BNP associate bodies formally began the march from the party's Nayapaltan central office at 11:30am. Before launching the march, BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, top leaders from the three organisations, also delivered brief speeches, condemning the Indian ruling party and media for attempting to disrupt religious harmony in Bangladesh through false and misleading campaigns. Read: BNP accuses India of 'direct aggression' in supporting Hasina Rizvi alleged that what the Indian ruling party is currently doing to bring Sheikh Hasina back to Bangladesh is nothing but direct aggression. “You (Indian govt) do not like the people of Bangladesh. You do not respect the sovereignty and independence of Bangladesh,” he said in a brief speech before launching a protest march towards the Indian High Commission in Dhaka from Nayapaltan. Rizvi said Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh and took refuge in India in the face of a strong mass uprising. “What the ruling party of India is doing to bring Sheikh Hasina back is nothing but direct aggression in the language of political science,” he said. Rizvi equivocally said the 180 million people of Bangladesh are prepared to resist Delhi’s hegemony. "We know how to use sophisticated equipment to safeguard our country in every domain, from air to sea to land. We have capable members in our smart military,” he observed. Read more: BNP begins protest march towards Indian High Commission  

Dhaka Power Distribution Company Ltd (DPDC) has finally started the work to lay underground cables that will replace the high voltage overhead transmission lines in Hatirjheel area. “We’ve already laid 2.2km of 132 kilovolt (kV) underground cables, out of a total length of 3.5 km. We hope, by next year people will not see any overhead cables in Hatirjheel,” Bikash Dewan, managing director of DPDC, told UNB. He informed that the cables are being laid underground through digging the roads in southern part of the Hatirjheel area and cables reach the Mogbazar through Rampura Bridge area. The Hatirjheel Lake was artificially created in a vast area of Gulshan, Tejgaon and Rampura as part of the city's beautification and environmental protection plan. But the overhead cables were out of place with the plan. Read more: Dhaka alone experiencing over 600 MW of load shedding during daytime Removing overhead cables from Hatirjheel is a part of the DPDC’s larger plan to take all its overhead cables underground from different areas in the city’s central, west and southern parts. The DPDC undertook a “Power Distribution System Upgrading Project” to improve its network and system in its command area in Dhaka city and signed a contract with the Chinese contractor TBEA in September in 2019 to implement the China-funded Tk 20,500 crore mega project. DPDC officials said that earlier they completed the design of the project in which a total of 190 kms of overhead electricity cables will be removed and taken underground from different areas in the city. Of these, about 115 kms are of 11 kV overhead lines, and 75 kms are 0.4 kV lines, they said, adding that all kinds of overhead electric cables will go underground and no cable will remain visible in a particular part of Dhanmondi area that includes Satmasjid Road, Mirpur Road, City College and Greenherald School area. Read more: Coordination demanded in underground cabling of electricity, internet lines Under the project, 40 substations will be set up in the city and cables in Dhanmondi residential areas will be laid underground. Taking overhead cables underground from Jahangir Gate in Cantonment to Motijheel is also included in DPDC’s other similar project which was already completed. “Of the areas, implementation work of the project in Dhanmondi area is in progress,” said Bikash Dewan, addingwork will be started gradually in many more areas. DPDC officials said the equipment for the project has already arrived from abroad. Under the project in the Dhanmondi area, pole-mounted transformers are being replaced with box-type transformers. Read more: Overhead electricity cables to go underground in major cities: Nasrul Hamid   Some 36 box-type transformers, 296 of 6-way ring main units (RMU), 34 of 3-way RMUs and 130 LV Cabinet will be installed to facilitate the underground cabling system, they informed. They said the project was supposed to kick off in January 2020. But the Chinese engineers who were responsible for designing the works got stuck in their hometown Wuhan following the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic. Officials said most of the materials, equipment and system were brought to the country for the Dhanmondi pilot project. Bikash Dewan said once the project is implemented, it will play a vital role in improving the power distribution system and substantially check the unexpected interruption in power supply. Read more: DPDC blames delay in launching Dhanmondi underground cable project on DSCC, hails DNCC cooperation