Power and gas are likely to become pricier next after diesel, kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas as the government looks to adjust their prices in the local market following a global price spiral since July. A news report on Sunday said that last month, top officials of different ministries, including finance, energy and power, met to analyse the impact of the global price escalation on the budget. In those meetings, there were talks of raising the prices of power and gas as keeping those at the current level would entail huge subsidies. The report further said that a subsidy of Tk 6,000 crore has been assigned for importing liquefied natural gas this fiscal year. But Tk 20,000 crore to Tk 25,000 crore in subsidy may be required to keep the gas price at the current level. Likewise, the authorities may also need to give about Tk 20,000 crore as electricity subsidy.
However economists have opposed the government move to hike prices of power and gas at a time when the country is emerging from the throes of the pandemic. Hiking the electricity and gas tariffs along with the diesel and kerosene would only increase the production costs. It is to be noted that when the price of petroleum was low in the global market, multilateral lenders like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and local think-tanks like the Centre for Policy Dialogue requested the government to reduce the fuel price accordingly. But they did not oblige. It is to be noted, between fiscal 2014-15 and 2020-21, the state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation had logged profits of around Tk 43,136 crore.
We often wonder why the government does not take initiatives to raise the efficiency of concerned departments. Even no systematic steps have so far been taken to cut the system losses and reduce the costs of electricity and gas. While in the case of electricity there can be a certain percentage of system loss due to technical reasons, in the case of gas there is no scope of system loss other than pilferage. It is clear that the authorities are planning to hike power and gas prices once more. When some countries in South Asia lowered the price of electricity because of the lower price of oil in the global market, in Bangladesh the opposite is the picture. This is unfortunate. This time too high prices of power and gas will be shifted to the consumers’ end.
