DUSHANBE, February 11, Asia-Plus — Electricity rationing introduced in Dushanbe on February 7 also affected the state-controlled publishing house Sharqi Ozod, which prints all the state-run and many private newspapers.
The publishing house has electricity only ten hours per day – five hours of electricity in the morning (from 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.) and five in the evening (from 5:00 p.m. to 10 p.m.).
The publishing house is under jurisdiction of president’s executive office and the Sharqi Ozod director Manzourkhon Dodokhonov told Asia-Plus on Monday that they already informed president’s office of the power supply situation, “however, no measures have been taken to provide regular electricity supplies.”
In the meantime, even the introduced rationing is not observed properly. Today, for example, electricity supplies to Sharqi Ozod were cut off at 7:30 a.m. instead of the planned 10:00 a.m.
Many weeklies and news agencies are forced to work in snatches. It is cannot be ruled out that many weeklies will not be brought out this week.
