Officials and employees of the Comilla Palli Bidyut Samiti have protested by halting electricity connections in response to the dismissal of 20 colleagues, resulting in widespread power cuts across four cooperatives in Comilla and other locations nationwide, causing significant public inconvenience.
The protest took place on Thursday at the Comilla Palli Bidyut Samiti-2 office in the North Rampur area of South Comilla.
While the district administration intervened to restore services, protesters warned that connections could be severed again at any time.
The protestors are demanding the implementation of a unified service code through the merger of the Rural Electrification Board and the Palli Bidyut Samiti, as well as the regularization of contract-based and irregular employees.
They have been advocating for these demands for an extended period. Recently, 10 employees were dismissed on Wednesday and another 10 on Thursday, prompting the protests.
To ensure the continuity of electricity supply, Comilla Deputy Commissioner Md Amirul Kaysar visited the Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board’s supervising engineer's office in North Rampur on Thursday afternoon and held discussions with the cooperative officials.
The Rural Electrification Board said that the dismissals were due to actions that destabilized urgent electricity services and a disregard for the directives of the regulatory authority.
Deputy Commissioner Kaysar said: "Electricity is the property of the state, it cannot be stopped."
