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Shopping centre timing

November 24, 2007 00:00:00


THE caretaker government took a wise decision to shut down shopping centres at 7pm, later extended by an hour, which was relaxed for the month of Ramadan. The relaxation was logical as the month of Ramadan provides the peak seasons for shopping and business.
But after the Eid vacation the timing is not being maintained properly with some of the centres remaining up open till 8pm and others even after 9pm. There is none to look into the matter. Neither has the government changed the timing.
I feel that maintaining the timing for the shopping centres is important for many reasons. We could not yet overcome the problem of severe power shortage. After SIDR, the situation has only worsened. Since shopping centres consume more electricity than many other sectors, allowing them to remain open for long would only aggravate the situation. Apart from these what is more important is that a fixed shopping time would change our social and economic behaviour, and help us avoid wastage of time in shopping centres. Many countries in the world have fixed the timing for the shopping centres to follow. Why should we not maintain a fixed time?
Raffat Sultana
Mirpur, Dhaka

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