Proposed budget lacks direction to improve energy situation: Tamim

 

The proposed budget has no direction to ensure primary fuel supply of the country or to take proper measure to increase gas output in future days as there is no plan or directives to improve the situation, energy expert, former energy adviser to the caretaker government Dr M Tamim said.

"Everyone knows that our main challenge is primary fuel, due to shortage of primary fuel we cannot run our power plants, cannot supply adequate amount of electricity to the industries even the households, unfortunately, the budget did not discuss the issue," Prof Tamim told the Daily Observer on Thursday in his primary reaction on energy and power sector's programme in 2023-24 fiscal year.

He said the energy division has announced that it plans to increase 600 mmcf of gas production from local gas fields as soon as possible�.at the same time it allocates only Tk  900 crore to implement the energy sector's plan in the next one year, this is very upsetting .

"To bring the Bhola gas into the national grid we need to install a 130 km pipeline, if the government really means that it wants to bring the gas from Bhola as it is a ready field from where we could bring the gas right now, than the total allocation of money for the energy sector is required to implement it �.these are farce, I don't believe in any single word of the government spokesman, don't believe on the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation data book as all are fake �if these are the manner to draw a future plan for any sector that will never make any sense of development," the energy expert said.

Interestingly, the Finance Ministry has allocated Tk 33,700 crore for power sector development. Presently, more than 30 power plants cannot be operated as there is no fuel, why the amount is so big compared to the energy sector's allocation, he asked.

"We can apprehend that most of the money of this power sector allocation would be spend for the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant to get only 600 MW of power right now (another 600 MW will come later), �these are ridicules, why not we are taking massive plan to increase our own gas as it is the only solution which could be able to address  the power crisis as well as stop spending money to import high cost LNG from abroad that will help us to tightened the belt of inflation and address the dollar crisis and reduce the burden from the public shoulder," Prof Tamim said.

Yes,  the government has announced that it will give subsidy for the sector, it is election year we understand the issue but we see lack of transparency is a big problem here �.we want to know from the government what is its future plan to increase local gas output in total production, we want to know why Petrobangla cannot produce gas from the country's biggest gas field Titas like Chevron's Bibiyana or Moulovibazar field?

"Petrobangla has no knowledge or technology like Chevron, it also does not have the money like Chevron but the truth is knowledge and technology is the main lack of this state owned organization, that's why it cannot produce gas like them (Chevron is producing 1,000 mmcf gas from Bibiyana although its size is small than Titas, on the other hand Titas's production is reducing in every year no one care about it or tell the fact to all), we should re-think all these issues and re-visit our plan and programme if we really mean that we do not like to dependent on importing LNG from abroad," he said.