Bangladesh readymade garment loses 30 p.c
Hindu, India
Dhaka, April 26 (Xinhua): Bangladesh’s readymade garment (RMG) sector is facing severe crisis due to inadequate and irregular power supply that pushed the potential export-oriented sector to cut off its production by at least 30 percent on a regular basis since February.
“We are forced to stop our production due to frequent power interruptions resulting production loss by about 30 percent of our total production,” Tipu Munshi, President of Bangladesh Garments Manufacturer and Exporter’s Association (BGMEA) was quoted as saying by local daily The Independent on Wednesday.
According to the daily, during a meeting with State Minister for Power Iqbal Hasan Mahmood on Tuesday, the BGMEA president, along with his colleagues, also submitted an 8-point demand and urged the minister to start planned load shedding program for the RMG sector to minimize the production and export losses.
Their suggestions include introducing a relatively lower and flat power tariff dealing with the existing peak and off-peak hour rates, issuing notice prior to the start of load-shedding and installing PFI (power factor improvement) devices at the garment factories by the government and allowing factories to consume up to 75 kilowatt electricity without any installing and sub-stations.
The state minister assured the BGMEA team that the utility department will henceforth follow a schedule load shedding chart for the RMG sector. Though there is a power staggering program chart but the utility departments failed to follow it due to huge and often unpredictable power shortage.
To reduce extra burden from their shoulder, the BGMEA representatives demanded withdrawal of the off-peak hour and peak- hour rates for the RMG sector.
At present, the rate of per kilowatt hours electricity in peak hours is 5.36 taka (7.66 U.S. cents) against the off-peak rate of 3.05 taka (4.36 U.S. cents).
