The decision to include liquefied natural gas (LNG) into the country's energy mix is a very positive one as it has offset Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB)'s annual loss by a a huge margin. The loss could be further minimised if bulk shares of electricity were not supplied to the Rural Electrification Board (REB) as it is the government's vision to bring the whole country under its electrification programme.
Power supply to the country's remotest rural areas is one of the outstanding successes of the government that took economic risks to install costly fuel-based power plants years ago. This is now paying back with dividends. As more rural homes keeps coming under the government's electrification programme the gap between urban and rural areas is diminishing fast.
Even a few years ago a rural household that could not hope to get electricity now keeps a refrigerator and watch news and entertainment programmes in satellite channels like its urban counterparts. Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board, which claimed to have 10 million new consumers in the last three years, however, hoped that its income and expenditure will not exceed each other in 2020.
This new advantage is sure to have its impact on rural lives including economy and education. This should be the nation's aim. That is why if the government needs to continue giving subsidy to electricity generation for the sake of bringing pockets of areas that still are not brought under electricity, it should do it. This overriding need also tells of the necessity of keeping electricity price always at a reasonable rate. We indeed welcome government's position of providing increased amount of electricity to REB for materialising its vision to supply electricity to every household across the country.
Bangladesh calls itself a welfare state and hence the aim of the government should not always be to make its services to people financially viable or profitable ones. The overall economic condition of people in the country also does not permit putting burden of another price hike on them.
As electricity price hike creates a domino effect on other consumer items also and not remains limited to electricity price only, the policy makers must always conduct effective brain-storming before hiking electricity price. This should be the line of thinking even when the local currency is devalued and a hike is seen in the price of liquid fuel in the international market.
