Bulk power price hiked by 19.92 per cent

Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) has increased bulk electricity price by 19.92 percent to Tk6.20 per unit from Tk5.17 with effect from December 2022.

BERC Md Abdul Jalil announced the decision on Monday at a virtual press briefing to raise the power tariff disposing of the review appeal of the state-owned Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) to raise the bulk power tariff.

However, the new power tariff will not be effective for retail consumers. It will be effective only for six state-owned power distribution companies and some other bulk consumers.

In a quick response to the announcement State Minister for Power Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid told the reporters at the Secretariat the government had no plan to raise retail price.

However several managing director (MDs) of power distribution companies told The Business Post they had already prepared to submit their proposal to increase retail electricity price.

Md Azharul Islam, the MD of West Zone Power Distribution Company, said last week: “We will submit the proposal next week (running week).”

BPDB filed the review appeal to BERC on November 14 after its proposal was rejected by the regulator on October 13.

Before submitting the proposal, BPDB received a nod from the government’s highest level, the media release from BERC said. State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid also approved the review appeal on bulk power tariff.

BERC Chairman Abdul Jalil said the new bulk tariff was set considering Tk17, 000 crore subsidy to be received from the government.

Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) Vice President M Shamsul Alam termed BERC’s decision, without any public hearing, an arbitrary act and violation of the BERC Act.

When people are already fed up with load shedding and sharp price hike of essentials, this decision from BERC will be a big blow for public.

Power Division officials said the government had been under tremendous pressure to raise power tariff in order to reduce the subsidy in power sector as per condition of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which promised to provide $4.5 billion in loan to Bangladesh as part of crisis management support.

Earlier when delivering a decision by rejecting the BPDB proposal on October 13, BERC Chairman Abdul Jalil said some of the private companies, which purchased electricity from BPDB, had not submitted their data of transactions.

“There was data ambiguity. That’s why we did not analyze the impact of any rise in bulk tariff on the consumers considering socio-economic condition,” he told reporters.

BPDB proposed in January this year to increase the bulk power price by 67.65 percent to BERC. In 19 May BERC held a Public hearing and the commission’s technical team recommended 57 percent hike.

BPDB in its latest review appeal proposal mentioned that its actual generation cost of supply is Tk8.96 per unit instead of previous calculated tariff of Tk8.16 per unit.

Placing the proposal, BPDB officials said the organization would require Tk74, 189 crore in revenue to generate 88,993 million kilowatt hours (units) of electricity to supply to the power distribution companies.

The government raised natural gas, oil and electricity price this year. In last August the unprecedented fuel oil price hike hit the economy hard and reduced purchasing power of commoners incredibly.

Now people are struggling to manage their family. Common peoples said if the government increased the retail power price again they couldn’t cope with the high inflation.