Staff Correspondent
Most of the Dhaka city shops are violating the government ban on daily business after 8:00pm, adding to load shedding while the SSC examinees are being the worst sufferers owing to power outages during the evening hours.
Most of the big shops and shopping malls in the Dhanmondi, Mohammadpur, Mirpur, Maghbazar, Khilgaon and Shantinagar areas were found closing their daily business from 8:30pm to 10:00pm because of slack monitoring by the authorities.
Most of the city areas face around 1-2 hours’ load shedding during the evening peak hours, and had the shops been closed after 8:00pm, the load shedding would be a bit less as the city shops consume around 200-400MW of electricity.
The SSC examinees are facing difficulties in making preparation for their examinations during the evening hours because of the power outages.
The section 114 (3) of the Labour Act 2006 enacted during the BNP-Jamaat government says that all shops will close their daily business by 8:00pm. Some shops, including grocers, food shops and drug stores, however, were kept out of the purview of the ban.
The then government could not enforce the section as the shop-owners threatened to go for movement if the section was put into effect.
The interim-government first enforced the section during summer in 2007 to save around 200MW of electricity for reducing load shedding and suspended the section during Ramadan for Eid shopping.
The government specified that small shops selling rice, lentils, vegetable, fruit, meat, fish, bread, dairy products, pastry, sweetmeat, medicine and treatment-related materials, burial materials, betel leaf, bidi, cigarette, ice and newspaper can remain open after 8:00pm.
The other shops that were exempted from the ban include hotels, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, filling stations (on condition of using minimum electricity), vehicle service centres not meant for repair works, salons and barbers.
The labour act section was again enforced in January 2008. But towards the end of the interim-government rule, most of the shops started to continue their business after 8:00pm because of slack monitoring.
Officials of the Dhaka Electric Supply Company and the Dhaka Power Distribution Company admitted that the shops are being kept open after 8:00pm for lack of monitoring.
‘We have not gone for drive against the errant shops as the demand of electricity was low in winter and there was no load shedding. However, we have started monitoring the situation for the past one week because of the increased demand for power as the weather is getting warm,’ said a DESCO official.
He said the DESCO teams had started visiting different areas and were asking shops to close business after 8:00pm. ‘On the first day, the team will just warn them not to run their business after 8:00pm. But if the warning goes in vain, their power connections will be snapped on the second day,’ he said.
Power secretary Nasiruddin Ahmed told New Age on Monday that they would first motivate shop owners so that they close down their shops after 8:00pm and did not get panicked.
Sources in the power division said they would motivate the people through both the print and the electronic media.
Courtesy:newagebd.com
