the daily working hours by one hour. Without elaborating on when the usual timetable may resume, Islam stated, “The new office hours will begin on Wednesday, and remain in place until the energy situation becomes manageable”. He said that banking hours had been changed from 10 am to 5 pm to 9 am to 4 pm.
Additionally, the Council suggested that schools and institutions have two weekend days as opposed to one. In the beginning of the month, tens of thousands of protestors demonstrated against the government move to hike fuel prices by up to 52 percent, the largest rise in the nation’s history. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which led the August 11 demonstration in Dhaka, launched its second countrywide anti-government demonstration on Monday. However, the demonstration was calm.
Under the new austerity initiatives, the government has also mandated a rolling power outage for one hour per day, urged the mosques to limit the usage of air conditioners in normal hours and use only during prayer times, discouraged imports of unnecessary goods, cut development spending, and instructed officials to limit vehicle use in an effort to relieve pressure on foreign exchange reserves.
