Govt and power generation
To express his keenness on his schemes for electrification, Lenin, the Russian leader used to say that “electricity plus soviets equal socialism” and to materialize his thinking, he soon started a huge scheme for electrification of the rural areas, and works for setting up mighty electric plants were initiated soon after his taking over the authority of his country. Coming back to our own country, it was only because of the promise made by the Awami League to make revolutionary programmes for electrification of the country that the younger generation went en-masse to vote for them. Unfortunately, the Awami League has not yet been able to show that its promises will be translated into reality. The leaders of the Awami League should not forget the fact that the younger generation of this country have no sentimental attachment for the Awami League and their voting for the party is nothing but the manifestation of their frustration with the BNP.
The Awami League knows well that electricity is just another name for development. It is now four months that the party has come to power. But we do not notice any significant change in the attitude of the govt towards power. There is no denying that the most important task for the present govt was to ensure optimum cultivation and production of Boro paddy because of the fact that for the last three to four years people have suffered due to the highly inflated prices of rice. Thus the urban people endured the terrible load shedding when the electricity generated was transferred to the fields to ensure adequate production of Boro. Now with the change in the harvesting schedule, electricity is being transferred to the urban areas to mitigate the sufferings of the town dwellers. This kind of stop-gap management of electricity is essential and has its merits too.
Electricity is not something that can be generated overnight and it takes at least eighteen months to set up a new plant and start production. But what is most painful is the real, not apparent, callousness of the party in power towards generation of electricity.
However, if the Awami League remains faithful to what it mentioned in its election manifesto, they should not waste a single more day and go all out for setting up new power plants.
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