Public hearing on power tariff begins tomorrow

Public hearing on power tariff is set to start from tomorrow (Monday) at Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) in the wake of the Power Development Board's (PDBs) proposal to increase electricity tariff by 15 percent at the bulk level.
BERC has also approved the power distribution companies' proposal to increase12 per cent price hike of electricity at retail level the soonest, according to the BERC.
"Government artificially increased power generation cost by not readjusting diesel and furnace oil prices with the international market in the last seven years, now they are moving to hike the price just      to get hold of more public money. However, we calculated the loss-profit of PDB and other distributing agencies, we found the power entities were not incurring losses rather they are earning TK 0.6 per unit of electricity," Consumers Association of Bangladesh's energy adviser Dr. Shamsul Alam told the Daily observer on Saturday.
He said that CAB is going to submit an electricity price cut proposal to the BERC for hearing. However, if the BERC not accept it CAB will seek a Supreme Court intervention as power price should have reduced because of lower prices of fuel in the international market.
According to him the government realised more than Tk 21,000 crore in taxes and duties in profits from fuel oil market in the past three financial years till 2016-17, according to government data available from the latest budget documents.
Citing higher prices of fuel and oil and also the growing dependence on them, the commission already raised the average retail price of electricity by 69.25 per cent, up from Tk 3.76 per kilowatt-hour or unit to Tk 6.33, in eight phases, between March 2010 and September 2015.
The commission also increased the bulk price of electricity by 106.75 per cent, up from Tk 2.37 per unit to Tk 4.90 per unit, in seven phases, between March 2011 and September 2015.
On the next six days following a four-day interval, the commission would hold the hearing on the proposals made by six power distribution utilities for raising retail prices of electricity by 3.24 per cent to reduce the losses they incurred due to the September 2015 tariff order of the commission, according to their proposals.
The commission would hold the hearing on the power board's proposal for retail price hike by 3 per cent on September 26, Rural Electrification Board's proposal for 10.75 per cent hike on September 27, Dhaka Power Distribution Company's proposal for 6.24 per cent hike on September 28, Dhaka Electric Supply Company's proposal for 6.34 per cent hike on October 2, West-Zone Power Distribution Company's proposal for 10.36 per cent hike on October 3 and North-West Zone Power Distribution Company's proposal for 24 per cent hike on October 4, according to the proposals of the power distribution utilities.
"We are set to rationalize the tariff, whether the price would be increased or not is not at all an issue, but we need to restructure the tariff chart, discuss fuel mix issue and discuss the use of liquid fuel at larger scale in power production, so we need to share all these issues with the consumers," a senior official of the Power Division said.
"This time we are set to create a level playing field for all poor consumers in enjoying "life line tariff" slab," a senior official of BERC said.