DHAKA: Bangladesh has decided to reduce school and office hours after the power crisis and sharp rise in prices.
According to the world news organization, there is a severe power crisis in Bangladesh and 15 to 20 hours of load shedding is being done in many areas.
Bangladesh shut down 10 of its diesel power plants last month due to rising global prices of petroleum products.
The shutdown of these plants has reduced Bangladesh’s total power generation by 6 percent, increasing load-shedding periods and causing public unrest. Strong public pressure forced the government to take drastic measures.
In these measures, the weekly holiday in schools has been increased by one more day, meaning that schools will now be open only 5 days a week. Friday and Saturday will be a holiday while government offices will open from 8 to 3 instead of 9 to 5.
Similarly, banks will open from 9 to 4 instead of 10 to 6. Private enterprises have also been requested to try to adopt these working hours to overcome the oil and power crisis in the country.
It should be noted that at the beginning of this month, the government had increased oil prices by 51.7%, while due to the non-availability of dollars to buy oil, it has also submitted a request for a loan to the IMF.
Bangladesh’s strong and stable $416 billion economy is one of the fastest-growing in the world, but it faces dwindling foreign exchange reserves due to soaring import bills, which the government has sought to offset by buying luxury goods. And restrictions have also been imposed on the import of liquefied natural gas.
