Chairman of parliamentary watchdog on power and energy ministry Md Tajul Islam on Sunday said that he was shocked as the authorities concerned had failed to stop illegal connections of power and natural gas.
‘The situation remained unchanged despite the parliamentary watchdog addressed the matter on several occasions,’ he said at a seminar on National Energy Security Day- 2015 hosted by Petrobangla, the state-run Oil, Gas and Mineral Resources.
‘Anarchy cripples energy sector … It seems there is no governance in the country…’ he bursted over the continued practice of drawing illegal connections for power and gas.
State minister for power, energy and mineral resources Nasrul Hamid chaired the seminar where prime minister’s energy adviser Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury attended as chief guest in presence of Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission chairman Abdur Rab Khan and other senior officials of energy sector.
Tajul, in his speech, also said that the country’s rising industrial sector had become stagnant due to inadequate supply of fuel to the industries.
At the seminar, Nasrul urged the energy commission to increase the prices of electricity and natural gas as the government had to invest a huge amount of money for development of the two sectors.
Large investment is required in power generation, transmission and distribution and in exploration, transmission and distribution of natural gas, he said, adding, ‘I think the prices of energy should be adjusted.’
The government started observing the day since 2011 as on this day in 1974 the country’s first government led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman bought five big gas fields from US-based Shell Oil at the cost of only 4.05 million pound sterling that have been contributing as the backbone supply of energy till date.
The five fields — Titas, Habiganj, Bakhrabad, Rashidpur and Kailashtila — have been supplying natural gas for decades at only Tk 7.5 per thousand cubic feet against about Tk 220 at which the international oil companies supply gas from onshore fields.
At the seminar, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation chairman AM Badruddoja expressed his stand against price cut of fuel oil although the prices in the international market have been sliding since June 2014.
He said that BPC owed Tk 29,000 crore to the government in loan and other liabilities which had been accumulated in 14 year until it started making profit since January 2015.
He urged the government to consider the liabilities of BPC and the required funding for its development projects before reducing the fuel oil prices.
Additional secretary of energy division Nazimuddin Chowdhury urged the policymakers to convert the loan that it had lent BPC into grant as the deficit was accumulated due to the government’s policy to market fuel oils at lower rates than the import cost for years.
He said that the state-run petroleum exploration and production company Bapex was almost dead and it was needed to survive first before taking measures to build it as an international standard.
Abdur Rab Khan, in his speech, said that the authorities concerned did not utilise money of the Gas Development Fund properly which the energy commission had created to increase the strength of Bapex in petroleum exploration.