Energy crisis in Bangladesh

Energy supply is a major problem for all classes in Bangladesh. The electricity infrastructure is old and badly maintained, breaks down frequently and is inadequate to meet the demand. Power cuts are frequent; many areas are only supplied for a few hours a day. Some areas have no power for days at a time when a local generator fails. For the ruling class, it impedes productivity, forcing shutdowns of workplaces when supply fails. For workers, it means loss of income due to these unpaid stoppages. For the wider society, air conditioning stops and makes crowded urban areas even more unbearable in hot weather. Lack of refrigeration encourages traders to regularly doctor food with dangerous cheap preservatives such as formaldehyde. Water supplies are also affected, as much of it is dependent on electric pumps extracting groundwater supplies, both for domestic use and for farm irrigation.

The lack of regular electricity has severely affected industrial output, particularly in the jute mills, the country's second largest industry after the garment sector. Loss-making mills, whose management partly blames lack of power supply for unprofitability, have withheld wages for months at a time. This has sparked strikes and violent clashes.

Increased industrial profitability may be a motivation to put greater effort into resolving the energy crisis, but the larger political situation must first be resolved. The lack of adequate energy infrastructure severely affects both qualities of life for the poor and capital accumulation for the rich industrialists. In contrast, government officials have found the energy question highly profitable. The inadequacies of energy supply are a direct result of the corruption and short term greed of all previous governments. Every energy project has had funding and progress dissipated by institutional corruption and pilfering of funds at every level of government and business.

The energy infrastructure crisis neatly illustrates one of the main aspects of the present political conflict in Bangladesh. The state bureaucrats' domination of politics and economic disorganization is restricting the growth of the economy, becoming a 'fetter on the forces of production'; this growth is represented at present largely by the quickly expanding garment industry. The culture of kickbacks, bribes, unproductive retainers and parasitical officialdom must be confronted and overcome before the conditions for a stable modern industrial economy can be created. Therefore this problem must be solved very soon so that we can get a better and developed nation by 2050.