UNB, Dhaka :
Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal (BSD) have placed a formal proposal to the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) to hold a public hearing for reducing power tariff instead of increasing it.
The left-leaning parties, under a joint political alliance, submitted their formal proposal to the energy watchdog body on Thursday.
“We’ve submitted our proposal taking into consideration the present reality in the energy sector after the significant fall in petroleum prices on global market,” CPD head Ruhin Hossain Prince told UNB.
He said, the issue of reducing the power tariff at both the bulk and retail levels deserves a great consideration as the prices of petroleum fuel are falling on the global market which created a scope for decreasing the power tariff locally.
“In most cases in the past, both the government and BERC usually put a card of fuel price up to raise the power tariff. But this time, the card is going in favour of the common consumers following the fuel price fall globally,” he argued.
Prince and BSD leader Bazlur Rashid Firoz submitted the proposal to the BERC on behalf of their two political parties against the backdrop of the watchdog body’s notice for holding series of public hearings on January 20-25 in response to appeals filed by different power utilities.
The two parties mentioned in their proposal that there is no justification to raise the power tariff. Rather, decreasing the power tariff will be wise and prudent, they said.
Earlier, the BERC fixed a schedule to hold a series of public hearings on the proposals placed by different utility bodies to raise power tariff at bulk and retail level.
The proposals, placed by the five state-run power distribution agencies, sought to raise the retail price of electricity by between 17.45 percent and 25.89 percent and 18.12 percent in the bulk price.
As per the schedule, BERC will hold public hearing for PDB about bulk tariff on January 20, for wheeling charge of PGCB and retail tariff of WZPDC on January 21, for DPDC and PDB’ retail tariff on January 22, and for REB and DESCO’s retail tariff on January 25.
The BERC last raised the retail power tariff by Tk 0.40 on average giving effect from March 1, 2014. At that time, bulk tariff was raised by 18.22 percent and retail tariff by 22 percent.
But with a short span of less than nine months, the power utilities again moved for tariff hike as per instruction of the government. CPB leader Ruhin Hossain Prince termed ‘totally illogical’ the proposals of the utilities to raise power tariff even one year elapses.
During the last order, the watchdog body directed the government not to move a further proposal to raise electricity generation unless the generation increased by at least 20 percent. “But in reality, power generation was not increased by 20 percent,” Ruhinhe added. The CPB, BSD and a number of left-leaning social organisations participated in the last hearing to oppose the government move.
Meanwhile, a top official at the BERC said they would place the CPB-BSD proposal to the highest level of the watchdog body for their consideration. “The proposal might be incorporated in the current move of the BERC for public hearing,” he said.
Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal (BSD) have placed a formal proposal to the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) to hold a public hearing for reducing power tariff instead of increasing it.
The left-leaning parties, under a joint political alliance, submitted their formal proposal to the energy watchdog body on Thursday.
“We’ve submitted our proposal taking into consideration the present reality in the energy sector after the significant fall in petroleum prices on global market,” CPD head Ruhin Hossain Prince told UNB.
He said, the issue of reducing the power tariff at both the bulk and retail levels deserves a great consideration as the prices of petroleum fuel are falling on the global market which created a scope for decreasing the power tariff locally.
“In most cases in the past, both the government and BERC usually put a card of fuel price up to raise the power tariff. But this time, the card is going in favour of the common consumers following the fuel price fall globally,” he argued.
Prince and BSD leader Bazlur Rashid Firoz submitted the proposal to the BERC on behalf of their two political parties against the backdrop of the watchdog body’s notice for holding series of public hearings on January 20-25 in response to appeals filed by different power utilities.
The two parties mentioned in their proposal that there is no justification to raise the power tariff. Rather, decreasing the power tariff will be wise and prudent, they said.
Earlier, the BERC fixed a schedule to hold a series of public hearings on the proposals placed by different utility bodies to raise power tariff at bulk and retail level.
The proposals, placed by the five state-run power distribution agencies, sought to raise the retail price of electricity by between 17.45 percent and 25.89 percent and 18.12 percent in the bulk price.
As per the schedule, BERC will hold public hearing for PDB about bulk tariff on January 20, for wheeling charge of PGCB and retail tariff of WZPDC on January 21, for DPDC and PDB’ retail tariff on January 22, and for REB and DESCO’s retail tariff on January 25.
The BERC last raised the retail power tariff by Tk 0.40 on average giving effect from March 1, 2014. At that time, bulk tariff was raised by 18.22 percent and retail tariff by 22 percent.
But with a short span of less than nine months, the power utilities again moved for tariff hike as per instruction of the government. CPB leader Ruhin Hossain Prince termed ‘totally illogical’ the proposals of the utilities to raise power tariff even one year elapses.
During the last order, the watchdog body directed the government not to move a further proposal to raise electricity generation unless the generation increased by at least 20 percent. “But in reality, power generation was not increased by 20 percent,” Ruhinhe added. The CPB, BSD and a number of left-leaning social organisations participated in the last hearing to oppose the government move.
Meanwhile, a top official at the BERC said they would place the CPB-BSD proposal to the highest level of the watchdog body for their consideration. “The proposal might be incorporated in the current move of the BERC for public hearing,” he said.
