Gas, power will be pricer

Electricity and gas would be costlier from next year as people have to pay international market price for these commodities as per 2017-2018 budget announced by the Finance Minister AMA Muhith onThursday.
"Gas will be purchased at international prices when its import begins in 2018. The current rate of taxes levied on gas, therefore, have to be rationalized. Consequently, the unit price of gas will undoubtedly increase. The gas price, however, will be adjusted by following the policy of subsidizing," Muhith said in his budget speech at Parliament.
The Finance Minister on Thursday proposed a Taka 21,118 crore budget for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, which is about 13.7 per cent of the total budget. In 2016-2017 it was TK 14,561 crore.
The Finance Minister proposed Taka 18,894 crore for the Power Division and Taka 2,224 crore for the Energy and Mineral Resources Division.  
On the other hand, the Finance Minister emphasized on power import from abroad, although he mentioned some mega power projects in his budget speech but all are going at snail's pace over the last two years. These projects are Rampal 1320MW coal- fired power project, Payra 1320 MW coal- fired power project and Matarbari 1300 MW coal- fired power project.
"We will carry on implementing our plan for importing power from Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and the NorthEastern part of India under sub-regional cooperation. I have already mentioned that dependence on rental power plants will be gradually reduced from 2018 onwards when a comfortable power supply situation can be ensured," Finance Minister said but did not mention the money source to address the dilapidated transmission and distribution system of the country.
In his budget speech, Muhith said that Tk 2,224 crore more would be allocated for Energy sector compared with the previous year as country is set to procure liquid energy from abroad for the first time to run the gas- fired power plants and support the industries. So the Finance Ministry has to increase the price of gas as well as electricity in domestic market. However, the price of fuel in international market is apparently stable and the Energy Ministry has been feeling relaxed during the last few years but now it set to import huge quantities of LNG from abroad so government allocates this amount.
"We will carry on our initiatives to increase electricity generation capacity by supplying LNG to power plants which closed down for lack of gas supply. Therefore, we will strengthen the activities for installation of LNG terminal and LNG import. We are expecting to import LNG and supply gas by 2018," the Finance Minister said.