Thousands of consumers across the nation are facing immense difficulties in getting their cards for prepaid electricity and gas meters recharged amid the ongoing internet outage and the curfew.

People were seen standing in queues for hours on end at power and gas supply offices yesterday. And after failing to recharge their cards, many returned to a home without power or gas or both.

Around 2.5 crore electricity consumers use prepaid meters across the country.

The owner of Rofrof Telecom, a shop on Tajmahal Road in Mohammadpur that provides prepaid card recharge services, said there are two types of machines used for recharging prepaid electricity and gas meters. One requires internet and the other does not.

"We used our neighbour's kitchen for cooking on Saturday. That night, we just had flattened rice. The next day, we got food from a restaurant. We can't go on like this."

— Anik Hasan of Nakhalpara

He said they are now having to resort to using only the top-up machine that does not require the internet.

Other vendors complained of having insufficient balance on their top-up machines as DPDC's designated agents could not provide them with credit for the past few days amid the extended bank holidays.

Abdullah Noman, managing director of the Dhaka Power Distribution Company, claimed that they were providing recharge services from 26 zonal offices since Friday.

"As a huge number of people are rushing to the offices, they're having to wait longer. Besides, we've increased our emergency balance by Tk 3,000 to Tk 5,000 based on usage, which should be enough for a good number of days for most people," he said.

"We hope the internet services will resume by this time and if not, we will take further necessary measures," he added.

Md Hasib of Tajmahal Road had Tk 120 left in his meter on Thursday morning. He was going to recharge his card that evening but the internet outage happened before he could do so.

"I started feeling sick after standing in line in front of DPDC's Lalmatia office for two and a half hours today [yesterday]. Luckily, I found a shop on my way home from where I could top-up my prepaid card."

Like him, many consumers braved the scorching heat to recharge their prepaid cards yesterday.

A shopkeeper told Safina Hoque of Lalmatia that he could not recharge her prepaid card. Her home had been without power since yesterday morning.

Desperate, Safina went to DPDC's Lalmatia office.

"I stood in line but later learned that the DPDC won't recharge my card, but will only extend the existing negative balance of my meter to Tk 1,000," she said around noon.

She said the extension of her negative balance would last her only days.

Meanwhile, people have been running out of credit on their gas meters as well.

Anik Hasan of Nakhalpara told The Daily Star that their gas meter went out of credit on Saturday morning.

"We used our neighbour's kitchen for cooking on Saturday. That night, we just had flattened rice. The next day, we got food from a restaurant."

"We can't go on like this."

Visiting the Titas Gas office at Karwan Bazar in the capital, this newspaper found the office padlocked. The people who were arriving for a top-up, were soon returning disappointed.

Al Amin, public relations officer at Titas, said the prepaid meters have facilities to provide emergency balance which should be enough for a small family to cook 10 to 15 days.

"For now, there is no other way to top-up prepaid gas meters. We're trying to find an alternative," he said.

The company also asked its users to call 16496 if they face any difficulties in getting the emergency balance.

The ordeal was same for consumers using prepaid gas and electricity meters in different parts of the country, including Chattogram and Cumilla.

"My home went dark on Saturday evening," said 45-year-old Kohinoor Begum at Bangladesh Power Development Board's (PDB's) Khulshi office in Chattogram yesterday.

She managed to top-up her card after waiting there for four hours.

Around 8.5 lakh PDB users in Chattogram use prepaid meters.

The chief engineer of PDB in the port city, Humayun Kabir Mazumder, said they were trying to mitigate the sufferings by increasing manpower.

In Cumilla, people were seen rushing to nearby PDB offices in different parts of the city.

There are around 50,000 subscribers who use prepaid meters there.

State minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid yesterday visited different electricity suppliers' offices in the capital.

"It is disheartening that the distributors have no other option now other than people coming to the offices for recharging prepaid meters. They have limited machines to provide the emergency support," he said while briefing reporters.

[Nazrul Islam and Sifayet Ullah from Chattogram, Khalid Bin Nazrul from Cumilla also contributed to this report]