While the world called for an hour of energy conservation on Earth Hour, Bangladesh, by not choice though, yesterday went for overkill and had on an average six hours of power cuts across the country.
It was not unusual for Bangladesh to “conserve” energy like that. It has been experiencing regular power cuts since the end of winter.
The government, to observe Earth Hour, urged all households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour from 8:30pm to raise awareness about the need to take action against global warming.
Curiously enough, a resident of Tajmahal Road in the capital’s Mohammadpur wished to join the world last night and observe Earth Hour. The resident could not do so because there was no electricity in her area during Earth Hour.
ASM Alamgir Kabir, chairman of Power Development Board, Thursday said the government could save about 400 tonnes of liquid fuel and 1.6 million units of electricity if everyone observed Earth Hour.
Ironically, Bangladesh had a load-shedding of around 500 megawatts yesterday, according to Saiful Islam Chowdhury, director (public relations) of PDB.
Residents of the capital faced 5-7 hours of load-shedding yesterday, which was the weekend. Load-shedding was more acute in the old part of the capital and in Uttara.
“Power cut every alternate hour gives me pain. It’s tough to study in this heat,” said Mostafizur Rahman, an HSC examinee in Uttara.
“Why do we need Earth Hour when we don’t get electricity 12 hours a day? This is a joke! We observe earth hours every single day,” said Aktaruzzaman of Nazimuddin Road in Old Dhaka.
-With The Daily Star input
