Businesses face the scourge of power outage

Large swathes of the country plunged into a blackout on Tuesday, causing untold suffering for people all over the country. From patients at hospitals to business organisations, the abrupt power outage triggered a wave of difficulties.

As per a TBP report, some regions in the country, including the capital and Chattogram, witnessed power outages for several hours after 2pm on Tuesday due to a technical glitch in the national grid.     

Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) formed a five-member committee to investigate the reason behind the grid failure.

As it is, the business condition of the country is precarious as the Ukraine War has had a terrible impact on the global economy, severely affecting supply chains. Almost all countries, especially the developed ones, are inexorably sliding into a recession or recession like condition.

Naturally, when rich nations face economic meltdown, the ripple effect will be felt in developing ones which rely on work orders from developed nations for much needed export earnings.

The situation in Sri Lanka is a not directly related to the war but the economic woes have been exacerbated by the European conflict, which has devastated the island nation’s tourism dependent economy.

Sri Lanka is still reeling from economic tribulations and while Bangladesh is not facing an immediate danger, there are enough indicators to suggest that the future will be tough.

Rising cost of living, high inflation, capricious Dollar exchange rate, slowly falling foreign reserve plus energy demand create a sobering picture. The blackout on Tuesday was sorted by late evening although there were rumours initially that power would not be restored until the following day.

During the almost seven hour ordeal, the nation’s business apparatus came to a standstill. The country is living with regular load sheddings – a system through which every area experiences power outage to ease the burden of demand.

This per se is detrimental to commerce and trade because buyers avoid areas without power. In addition, without power, machines used for cashless transactions don’t work. It’s therefore fair to say that the business community is already grappling with an adverse situation; any long term power outage is like an added scourge.

But while the power outage disrupted normal trading activities, the general law and order situation was not affected.

There are instances of power outage in developed nations where mass scale anarchy erupted with looting, plundering and pillaging of shops. Thankfully, in Bangladesh, there were no such incidents.

The reality globally at this moment states that everyone has to be ready to weather a storm. No economy is fully insulated from turbulent trends. Accepting this truth, the priority has to adopt the maximum measures to minimize the damage.

The daily load shedding will affect trade although there is no other way at the moment. Businesses can minimize loss by opening early and the government may think about extending the business hours by thirty minutes. Since the world is moving towards hard times, the government may take up a nationwide solar panel installation effort with support from development agencies.

Also, making it mandatory for all major markets to place solar panels can provide the necessary lights in case of prolonged power outages.

Of course, the expectation from most citizens is, such a blackout will not recur but keeping in mind that no technology is flawless, contingency measures have to be in place.

As the war lingers, global economy will continue to slow down, affecting all nations, including Bangladesh. In the days to come, it’s the resilience of this nations which will be put to the test.

This country has seen the worst in the first two decades after liberation; that stoicism will now be needed the most.