Fertilizer production stopped in Yamuna, the blame falls on rats!

Staff Correspondent

Urea production at the Jamuna Fertilizer Factory has been halted after rats damaged electrical wires and caused a blackout.

According to the factory authorities, production activities were suspended after a sudden power outage occurred due to a short circuit in the factory’s power plant late on Wednesday, February 5th.

This evening, the factory’s GM (Operations) Md. Fazlul Haque said that rats entered the power plant at midnight and cut the electric wires. This caused a short circuit and caused a blackout in the entire factory. Currently, repair work is underway at a rapid pace.

He said that once the repair work is completed, it will be possible to resume urea production by next Saturday. The matter is being considered seriously and necessary preventive measures will be taken after checking whether there was any deficiency or negligence.

Officials say that after 23 months of severe gas shortage, the factory resumed production after receiving gas connection on November 24. However, production has been repeatedly disrupted due to low gas pressure and technical glitches.

Now, rat infestation has been added to that list.

Although the blame is placed on rats, some workers working in the factory say that rats are being used as an excuse to close the factory, which is plagued by various problems, including a gas shortage.

After being closed for 23 months due to gas shortage, urea production resumed at the factory on December 23rd of last year after receiving gas connection. But on the night of January 22nd, gas shortage again occurred and at the same time, a mechanical fault in the booster compressor forced the authorities to stop production.

Later, after 11 consecutive days of booster compressor repair work, production resumed on Tuesday night, 12 days later.