DST caught most by surprise on first day

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Jasim Uddin Haroon
With the introduction of daylight saving time (DST) from Saturday, the country's major shopping malls, patients on medication, students and joggers said they had suffered much due to the unaccustomed change.
The DST, means the countrymen will begin their work an hour earlier than before. The government pushed forward the clock an hour at 11:00pm Friday night in a bid to save electricity at a time when the country was suffering from acute power crunch.
Passengers of different modes of transportations suffered on the first day, as many of them failed to catch trains, board buses and planes, sources said.
Mohammed Helal Uddin, president of Dhaka Mahanagar Dokan Malik Samity, said, "Our sales will drop significantly and it will not bring fruitful result."
Mr Helal said people go to shopping centres generally at 11 in the morning, but under the new timing they might go to shop at 12 noon, which will ultimately hamper business activities by an hour.
Amir Hossian Khan, president of the Bangladesh Dokan Malik Samity said: "Customers prefer shopping at the evening, so the shoppers peak hours of selling will reduce by an hour."
He, however, said customers need time to be accustomed to the new timing.
Kamrul Islam, manager public relations of United Airways, a private airlines, told the FE: "Today (Saturday) our flight operation started one hour late."
He also said they would face problem with the international flights and added: "We have to fly an hour extra before landing in foreign airports following the introduction of the new system."
Many passengers, scheduled to leave the city early morning from Kamlapur railway station, missed trains, some ill-fated passengers complained.
But station manager of Kamalapur station said: "I did not receive any formal complaints from the passengers." "We had intimated the passengers over the public address system about the addition of an hour to the clock," he added.
Students, especially in the city, suffered much as many of them missed classes on the first day of the DST.
"My class starts at 7.00am, under the new timing our class actually began at 6:00am. So I had failed to attend the class on Saturday," said Nishat, a class seven student of Motijheel Model High School.
Dr Zakir Ahmed, managing director of Telemedicine, a call centre, told the FE the new system might create problems for the patients, who were on medication courses.
Md Shafi, a regular jogger at Ramna said: "I really arrived one hour late at 7:00am, the time I normally return home after jogging."