Anisul Islam Noor :
The Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) needs a tax-break to import oil for its power plants like private sector power producers.
A tax-break will save as much as Tk 3000 crore per year for the BPDB, responsible for operating the government owned power plants, power division sources said.
“We have prepared a proposal, which will be forwarded to the finance ministry within a few days,” a responsible official of Power Division said.
Oil-based power plants account for 28 percent of Bangladesh’s power generation capacity. The 46 plants can produce 3,676MW power. The PDB-owned plants’ capacity is 1,112MW.
More than half of the private producers import oil themselves, while the BPDB buys from the state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC).
The BPDB incurred a loss of Tk 51.41 billion in the first 10 months of fiscal 2016-17. It was Tk 38.67 billion in the previous fiscal year. The BPDB has to pay 18 percent VAT and a 40-cent tariff for per barrel oil it procures, said BPC Director Syed Mohammad Mozzammel Haque.
“A proposal for a tax-break to BPDB, like the private producers, has been forwarded to the National Board of Revenue or NBR, but they are yet to respond,” said MM Haque, who heads BPC’s Operations and Planning.
Private power producers enjoy a tax-break on oil imports, while the government buys power from them at a higher rate.
According to BPC figures, it sold 1.2 million tonnes of oil to power plants in fiscal 2015-16.
Meanwhile, power distribution companies have proposed a revision of power price, after retail price were hiked seven times and the wholesale rate five times in the last seven and a half years.
The latest proposal wants to increase price by 15 percent at retail level per unit and six percent at wholesale level.
BERC started a public-hearing over the proposal from September 25.
