Power crisis and our garment industries

April 22, 2009 at 3:49 am (Factory Conditions, Hard time without electricity, Power crisis) (Bangladesh, cloth, Darkness, Sweat, women)

Photo: http://www.aliciapatterson.org

Bangladesh is suffering    from acute power crisis since a quite long time without any respite. The present new Government which has put this problem in the priority list has so far not given proper direction as to what steps it has taken to mitigate the crisis. The crisis has deepened to such an extent that general people started to think that we should start practice of leading life of medieval ages. One understands what role power plays in making of a nation. The major concern that is going through the minds of general people is, will we be able to keep our industries alive specially the Garment industries which brings big chunk of our foreign currency?   So far nothing appreciable has been done – except meeting and hope that power will be supplied uninterrupted in next three to four years. If this state of power supply goes on for one to two years imagine what will be the fate of many garment factories. Production will come down drastically: it will start loosing the international market and lastly and most importantly the undesirable cut in workers which will be a economic disaster for the nation. The crisis can be averted if Government start thinking without further delay of importing power from neighboring countries which are self sufficient in energy .and installing burger mounted power plant on short term basis as there is uncertainty of availability of gas on which the power plant of our country depends. There has been a lot of negligence in this sector. People don’t want to see any further negligence. The Government must put in their best efforts to solve this problem as soon as possible before it gets too late to incur the wrath of the general public and the RMG workers especially which may not be good taste for the Government.