As a sovereign entity, Bangladesh is relatively young. However, despite five decades since our independence, it is incredibly unfortunate to see the nation still struggle with basic human requirements such as water and electricity, especially in our urban centres -- despite the vigorous development of Dhaka over the past two decades, it is disappointing to see the city having to undergo severe load shedding schedules from time to time along with constant issues when it comes to the water supply.

According to news reports, due to faults such as the depletion of groundwater coupled with technical difficulties, citizens in parts of Dhaka have had little to no access to water for multiple days. While any faults regarding water supply in Dhaka can almost always be attributed to WASA, groundwater being depleted due to over-extraction rising from mismanagement.

On the other hand, the city, indeed the nation, is currently also in the midst of a new wave of rolling blackouts with entire areas of the capital seeing power outages for hours in a day. While the Finance and Commerce Adviser has already stated that it is going to take some time for the electricity problems to stabilize, we hope the focus on importing fuel and coal to meet this shortage is a stop-gap solution.

Traditional sources of fuel have been outdated for a long time now with the rest of the world pivoting towards clean energy as a more reliable and environmentally-sound method of power-generation. The interim government needs to commit to renewable energy as a part of its energy policies going forward.

In the midst of a particularly brutal heatwave, it is all the more unfortunate that Bangladeshis are having to suffer from a shortage of amenities as basic as water and electricity. We have been given the gift of a new country, it is imperative that we get the basics right. News Link: Getting the basics right