1. http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=256
2. THE NEW LOAD-SHEDDING OFFICER
NEW LOAD-SHEDDING OFFICER :
Load shedding is not a new phenomenon. It evolved on the day electricity was produced. Load shedding takes place not only when the load exceeds the limit production, but also when there is less of production for one or more reasons. During Pakistan period, however, load shedding for one or half hour used to take place only at certain time of the day. Quite often it took at 8.00 in the evening. In such a situation, a new profession with the title "load shedding officer" appeared in Dhaka city. At that time chargeable lights were not in use. So, as soon as there was load shedding people started looking for candles and matches. The few moments required for this purpose created the only scope of the day for the above professionals. Every evening they used to roam in busy spots or enter in important shops. The time the bigger hands of the clock was nearing twelve, they also would be nearing valuable items like the cash box, a lady's purse, ear-ring etc. Then, on the auspicious moment all lights were gone, there were sounds of men searching for match, cigarette lighter etc. After some lights were re-established a lady discovered her purse to have vanished, a customer to handover money to the cashier and the cashier to have empty hand etc. At that time "load shedding officer" turned to a popular and familiar term in the country.
Then, because of no use for a long time, the term turned obsolete. This was the period when luck was not in favour of such professionals. At this time rechargeable lights, that could work within the fraction of a second appeared in the scene, (some shops even kept such lights on) and timing of load shedding became uncertain.
Long after that, most recently, I mean to say in March 2009 we were fortunate to see one such "load shedding officer". By the second half of 2008 it was being understood that the latest ``Paper-wealth`` game played by the US capitalists would soon attain its success. At the end of the year the great recession became ripe in the developed countries. So, 2009 was the year when recession was expected to travel the developing countries like Bangladesh. All who were scared to think of its consequences became busy in thinking, what to do. At this time the new load-shedding officer chalked out his golden plan. At the golden time, after sincere hospitality in costly hotel and adoring the honourable guest with the nicest adjectives, the new load-shedding officer proposed for sanction of an enormous sum as `bailout program` for the garments industry. After the meeting the new officer even disclosed to the newsmen that the prime minister `nearly consented`. One patriotic leader however, expressed a different opinion that acted like instant appearance of light to scare the LS officer.
If the rich countries suffer from economic recession the suffering people would naturally observe austerity. In place of buying shirts every month they would naturally wash their old ones again and again (A recently published book has suggested to use clothes till those are worn). Naturally that would reduce their import of clothes. If the garments find problem, the first persons to face the problem would be the workers. Do any intelligent person ever believe that the garments owners would keep the workers in pay role when they would lose market ? One has to keep in mind that they are the people who constructed their headquarter building by ignoring the government rules and even ignoring the natural drainage requirement of Dhaka city.
Even though no one instantly lighted the match, the mission of the new load-shedding officer could not come out successful. Even though we heard from him that he prime minister "nearly consented", later we saw no indication of that. On the other hand the government has taken up the right decision to help the affected garments workers. Thus a big amount of the country's hard earned money was saved only because "the prime minister was reluctant to instantly accept the grand proposal" given by the great man.
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Prof. Bijon B. Sarma, Head Architecture Discipline, Khulna University, Khulna, Bangladesh.
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