Kabirul Hasan is the general manager of Toha Fashion Limited, which has a total of 1,500 employees. The factory operates 10 hours a day. However, they are currently facing load shedding of 6-7 hours. They now rely on diesel-powered generators to keep the factory running.
He further said that it is possible to deal with power cuts with diesel worth Tk 1.5 million per month. Now this cost has increased from three million taka to five million now. As a result, production costs increased but production rates fell.
Nasir Uddin, managing director of Saadma Group and vice-president of BGMEA, said, “It is becoming difficult to keep the factory running due to the power crisis. We get only eight hours of uninterrupted power supply every day in factories. We have to depend on generators running on expensive fuel oil for the rest of the day. Subsequently, production costs increased, but production declined. We used to produce 30 metric tonnes of product every day, which has now reduced to 15-16 metric tonnes.”
“We are not able to deliver products on time to our foreign buyers. However, we do not have the scope to delay bank installments or salary allowances of our employees.
