THE government moves to raise electricity price and railway fare citing higher fuel cost appears to befool the people at a time when the fuel prices has come below $30 per barrel from $113 in 2013 in global market. It sells cheapest now and yet the government is making the case of fresh electricity price hike for the seventh time since 2010 and railway fare again after 2012 citing higher fuel price. It hears an absurd argument to give the feeling that people are not informed at all about energy market situation at home and abroad. What is surprising is that when the move is at work to raise electricity price and railway fares blaming higher fuel cost, the Finance Ministry is making promises to reduce fuel prices. Only on Sunday news reports quoting Finance Ministry sources as saying that they have already asked the Energy Ministry for detailed information on import cost and selling price to refix prices in domestic market. It is not understandable when the Finance Ministry is talking about reducing fuel price, why the Energy Ministry and railways are working to use higher fuel price as the basis for raising their utility prices. In fact it is a pretext when they have no fair ground at all. The Energy Ministry however said they need higher electricity price to reduce the gap between selling price and cost of power generation. On the other hand, Railway Ministry is calling for a 7.8 percent rise in fares from February to recover fuel cost and other losses. Moreover Railway Minister has claimed fares will be raised every year from now to adjust with fuel prices. But when fuel prices are down how they are citing it as a cause is not clear. What appear quite disappointing is the mindless attitudes of the government policy makers who are out only eyeing to collect more revenue to cover other unjust overhead costs by misleading people on false grounds. It is not clear why the cost of power generation is always rising to require a rise in electricity price every time. Only in August last year, it was raised and proposal is mooted again for the purpose. It is no secret that most private sector power generation contracts are unsolicited contracts where transparency is lacking on higher electricity price at suppliers’ end. The most interesting thing is that when the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation is earning handsome profit which was Tk 5000 crore in 2014-15 over previous losses why the government is not ready to share the benefit with users. Reports said India adjusted fuel prices 22 times alone last year to harmonize it with lower global market price. Sri Lanka has put in place a constant market adjustment formula to benefit the consumers. Pakistan has lowered prices of all petroleum products by around 50 percent except Bangladesh where our government is using all misleading arguments to deprive the people of their due benefit.
