Extravagance, mismanagement and wrong policy of the government are the main reasons behind the ever increasing power generation cost. Ironically, the impact is handled by the end consumer as they have to pay for the extra cost, which is totally an irrational thing.
On Tuesday, the second day of the ongoing public hearing session held at the TCB bhaban, Power Development Board’s (PDB) proposal of raising the price of retail power was scrutinized before Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC). Representatives from the consumers said that, this kind of price hike proposals is completely irrational, especially when proposer itself is responsible for the extra cost. They said that, it will bring an anomalous situation in every sector once the price is raised.
However, the Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) of the BERC has recommended a 10.65 percent or taka 0.72/unit of price hike for the retail power in response to the PDB’s proposal of 14.05 percent of price hike. The public hearing session is headed by the BERC chairman Monwar Islam while he was assisted by the members- Rahman Murshed, Mahmudul haque Bhuiya.
Energy advisor of Consumer’s Association of Bangladesh (CAB) Prof. M Shamsul Alam said that, PDB has stopped generating power from its least costly power plants rather it has been continuing to buy power from the costliest plants. Rental and Quick Rental plants are still operating, which has been contributing to increase the cost of power along with extravagance, mismanagement, wrong policy of the higher authority. Mass people are paying for the deficit that the authority has been creating; this is utterly illogical, he said.
PDB chairman Eng Khaled Mahmud said that, the deficit between the price of power purchase and selling has caused 3 percent loss in the 2016-17 fiscal year, which is 538 crore 50 lacs in amount of taka. The loss would go higher if the bulk price of power is raised and that is why PDB proposed for a retail price hike to bring the deficit to zero, he said.
For the first time PDB has proposed for different price ranges for auto-rickshaw (tk 7.25/unit), multi-stored flat (tk 7.80/unit), and temporary connections of infrastructural development (tk 10.f0/unit). Besides, PDB also proposed for a hike in demand, service charge and security deposit.
TEC said that, PDB needs to manage taka 653 crore of revenue by selling power in the fiscal year of 2017-18. That is why, the price of retail power can be raised by taka 0.72 for per unit of electricity. TEC also recommended for an one percent rebate for the pre-paid meter users.
Consumemr’s representatives and business organization leaders strongly opposed to the proposal of price hike of the retail power. They said that, the increased price will surely affect the daily life of the mass people directly or indirectly.
BGMEA, BKMEA, MCCI, DCCI and other business organization leaders said that, garment industry contributes up to 80 percent of the country’s total foreign export. To maintain the dominance of the country in the international market, Bangladesh needs to compete with India, Cambodia, and Myanmar with price. The production cost will surely increase if the power price is hiked. The increased cost may force some of the garments to shut down and the country may lose its dominance in this industry.
Steel Re-rolling Mill Association vice president Jahir Chaudhury said that, the steel re-rolling mills takes an amount of around 1,000 MW of power which is 8 percent of their total production cost. The sector is now facing some depression and the increased price of power could paralyze the sector, he said.
Zunayed Saki, the chief coordinator of Ganasanghati Andolon said that, the increased price of power will create an extra pressure on the mass people who have recently suffered by a series of floods and have been dealing with extra prices of the daily commodities due to the floods. This price hike proposal is irrational, he added.