Power outages: BNP announces 3-day protest programme

BNP will stage demonstrations across the country to protest against the ongoing load-shedding and mismanagement in the power and energy sector.

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir announced the three-day protest programme at a press conference at BNP Chairperson's Gulshan office.

As part of the programmes, BNP's Dhaka north city unit will stage a demonstration on 29 July while Dhaka south city unit on 30 July. All other metropolitan cities will observe the same programmes on the same days.

Besides, BNP's all district units will also stage demonstrations on 31 July.

After that, the party will also stage demonstrations at the upazila level on the same issue.

BNP standing committee members worked out the programmes at a virtual meeting on Monday.

The meeting urged the government to step down admitting its failure to ensure the supply of electricity and energy.

Fakhrul said their meeting voiced concern that load-shedding for two-three hours in cities and five-six hours in rural areas has made public life miserable.

It also observed that setting up power plants to generate electricity without ensuring energy supply has compounded the problem. "The government has taken the power and energy sector to the path of darkness just out of its greed to plunder public money through corruption."

The BNP policymakers think the power outages are badly affecting the production in industry and agriculture alongside adversely affecting the economy.

Fakhrul said they will come up with elaborate information about corruption, anomalies and mismanagement in the power and energy sector at a press conference very soon.