Govt asks BERC to give decision on power tariff

The government is in a hasty move to get a decision from the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) so far the electricity tariff is concern.
It asked the BERC officials to complete the necessary analysis in this regard before 90 days following the public hearing on electricity tariff which the BERC conducted from September 25 to October 4, according to the sources in PMO, Power Division and BERC.
To express the desire, Energy Adviser to the Prime Minister Dr Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury on Thursday sat with the BERC Chairman Monwar
Islam and commissioners along with the Power Division Secretary Dr. Kaikus Ahmed at his office at the PMO.
"Currently, the government is allocating Tk 3000-4000 crore in its budget every year but the power generating authority is getting this amount as a loan from the Finance Ministry with 4 per cent interest. This time we want a clear cut decision from the Finance Ministry to specify the terms and condition of the "loan"  or "Subsidy " first so we could get a way to calculate the exact scenario of the loss and profit margin of the generation entity," a senior official of the Power Division told the daily Observer.
According to him, if the state owned authority would get Tk 4300 crore subsidy in power sector and if the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) would adjust TK0.55 loss per unit then BPDB would be able to supply power at lower rate.
Currently, the bulk tariff of per unit electricity is Tk 4.90. The PDB wants it to be re-fixed at Tk 5.99.
According to the BPDB, a hike in tariff was needed due to increased use of furnace oil and diesel in power generation, to buy power from the private sector, rise in energy prices, interest paid against government loans and supplying power to rural Palli Bidyut Samity at comparatively lower prices.
But the proposal faced strong opposition from different quarters as the right bodies strongly opposed the PDB's proposal and placed their counter proposal to reduce the tariff by Tk 1.32 per unit during the hearing.
Even the technical evaluation committee of the regulator, which thoroughly examined the proposals, found gross inconsistency in their account statements and recommended a rise by only 5 per cent to 11.78 percent per unit. The BERC technical committee suggested raising the bulk tariff by Tk 0.57 a unit considering the BPDB's net revenue requirement.
CAB has proposed reducing the bulk tariff price by Tk 1.32 per unit taking different measures and implementing the previous BERC order to ensure the purchase of cheaper electricity by Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB).
"The power tariff would go down significantly even if the BPDB imports furnace oil through commercial importers and generate electricity from the fuel," it said.
In a paper distributed at the hearing time the CAB said the government has waived all tax and VAT on import of furnace oil for all private and public power plants. It is the responsibility of the BERC to fix and readjust the prices of liquid fuel and electricity. But the energy and mineral resources ministry fixes the price of liquid fuel.
In February this year, the state agency submitted a proposal to increase bulk power tariff by 14.78 percent to Tk 5.59 a kilowatt-hour unit from the current rate of Tk 4.87.
The BPDB argued that it has to face a tariff deficit of Tk 0.72 per kWh unit because of the gap between the bulk supply tariff and the weighted average bulk tariff.