The federal government has taken recent strikes to extend the tariffs of gasoline, electrical energy and water once more whereas the costs of this stuff, on common, have been hiked by 124.28 per cent for the reason that ruling Awami League got here to energy in 2009.
The Bangladesh Vitality Regulatory Fee is scheduled to carry a public listening to on the proposed gasoline tariff hike in March 21–24 following a last proposal from six state-owned gasoline distribution firms and one such transmission firm on January 25 for a 117 per cent hike within the gasoline value on the retail stage.
If the proposal is applied, the month-to-month gasoline value for a double-burner range will rise to Tk 2,100 from Tk 975, whereas a single-burner range will price Tk 2,000 instead of Tk 925.
BERC chair Md Abdul Jalil informed New Age that the Bangladesh Energy Growth Board gave a letter to it at first of February, proposing a 69 per cent hike within the bulk buy value.
He mentioned that its job was to hike or alter the tariff however authorities analysts and policymakers might say higher about how affordable is rising the costs of public utility companies.
‘We will’t say how affordable the proposal for gasoline value hike is. We’ve got already fashioned a technical committee to judge the rationale for the worth hike proposal and they’ll submit a report back to us on this regard. We don’t intervene within the work of the technical committee,’ he mentioned.
The BERC will maintain the general public listening to after receiving the report from the technical committee, Abdul Jalil mentioned, including, ‘We’ve got additionally fashioned a technical committee a few Bangladesh Energy Growth Board proposal.’
The gasoline value for a double range elevated to Tk 975 from Tk 450 and for a single range to Tk 925 from Tk 400, a 123.52 per cent common rise since 2009.
The typical retail value of every unit of electrical energy was Tk 3.60 in 2009 whereas it’s now Tk 7.13, greater than 98 per cent larger than the 2009 charge.
The Dhaka Water Provide and Sewerage Authority elevated the water tariff for residential use by 151.32 per cent from Tk 6.04 per unit in 2009 to Tk 15.18 in 2021.
A BERC official on Tuesday mentioned that the costs of gasoline and energy will likely be raised however the enhance could be decrease than proposed.
There isn’t a different to rising the worth of gasoline as the federal government has to import LNG at the next value, in any other case the nation would have confronted a gasoline disaster, mentioned the BERC official.
Dhaka Water Provide and Sewerage Authority managing director Taqsem A Khan on Tuesday mentioned that they had been going to position a proposal to the federal government to extend water tariff by as much as 40 per cent as the federal government requested the authority to match the worth of water with its manufacturing price to section out the subsidy.
Eminent economist and Jahangirnagar College economics professor Anu Muhammad blamed the rising privatisation, corruption, irregularities and wastage as causes for the hike within the costs of gasoline, electrical energy and water whereas the federal government was not bearing in mind folks’s socio-economic situation however turning the general public service businesses into enterprise entities.
‘If the costs of utility objects go up additional, folks must bear an additional burden. It is going to additionally enhance anomalies and injustice in society, together with corruption, irregularities, crimes, dowry, unlawful money-making, whereas many individuals have already slid beneath the poverty line, with many middle-class folks shedding their jobs as a result of Covid outbreak,’ he added.
The utility service value hike, he mentioned, is a long-term plan of the federal government and the charges will likely be rising regularly within the days to come back.
Customers Affiliation of Bangladesh senior vice-president Professor M Shamsul Alam mentioned that the rise in gasoline, water and electrical energy tariffs would create an opposed affect on the life and livelihood of frequent folks as greater than 5 crore folks work within the nation’s non-public sector and who’re principally not in a position to increase their revenue as a result of ongoing Covid state of affairs.
He mentioned that the will increase within the costs of utility companies would additionally have an effect on the following finances as many individuals wouldn’t be capable to purchase quite a few requirements after paying for the dearer utility companies.
‘There was a surplus of Tk 1 lakh crore within the nation’s energy and gasoline sectors, which the federal government has taken away by making a regulation. It has made a achieve of Tk 44,000 crore from the gas oil sector with out making value changes to the worldwide market. The shoppers paid greater than Tk 1,500 crore annually for gasoline sector improvement however the cash was not invested for that objective,’ he talked about.
‘The state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Manufacturing Firm is now demanding Tk 4 in producing every cubic meter gasoline however the price mustn’t have been greater than Tk 1.5 as they produced earlier,’ he added.
The federal government is citing the import of liquefied pure gasoline at a excessive value as the explanation for rising the gasoline value however had the federal government strengthened the general public enterprises for exploring gasoline, there would have been no must import LNG, Anu Muhammad noticed.
‘We might have gotten gasoline at one-eighth of the import value,’ he mentioned, including that the federal government is paying cash to firms although they don’t seem to be producing energy.
There isn’t a accountability, he went on to say, in varied water initiatives and persons are making overseas excursions and importing equipment at excessive costs to create scope for corruption leading to value hike.
Dhaka WASA MD Taqsem additionally informed reporters earlier that they thought of elevating water tariff to finish authorities subsidy because it was feared that multinational lenders such because the World Financial institution, Asian Growth Financial institution, Japan Worldwide Cooperation Company, Export-Import Financial institution of China wouldn’t present loans for WASA initiatives if there was an enormous hole between the manufacturing price and the worth.
The retail energy value was elevated 6 per cent between December 2009 and March 2010, 5 per cent in February 2011 and 13 per cent in December 2011.
The retail value was raised on three events in 2012: 7 per cent in February, 6 per cent in March and 11.65 per cent in September.
In 2014, March noticed a 6.96 per cent enhance within the client stage value and September a 3 per cent rise.
There was a 5 per cent enhance in December 2015, one other 5 per cent in December 2017 and a 5.3 per cent in December 2020.
Up to now 13 years, the Dhaka WASA elevated the water tariff for residential use on 14 events from Tk 6.04 per unit in 2009 to Tk 15.18 in 2021, a 151.32 per cent enhance.
The present tariff for every unit of water, 1,000 litres, is Tk 15.18 for residential use and Tk 42 for industrial use, up from the earlier costs of Tk 14.46 and Tk 40.00 respectively in 2020, Tk 11.57 and Tk 37.02 in 2019, Tk 11.02 and Tk 35.28 in 2018 and Tk 10.50 and Tk 33.60 in 2017.
The Dhaka WASA raised the water tariff two occasions in 2016. The per unit tariff was raised to Tk 8.49 and Tk 28.28 in July for residential and industrial use respectively whereas the tariff once more went as much as Tk 10.00 and Tk 32.00 respectively in November.
The water tariff was Tk 8.09 per residential unit and 26.94 per industrial unit in 2015, Tk 7.71 and Tk 25.66 in 2014, Tk 7.34 and Tk 24.44 in 2013, Tk 6.99 and Tk 23.28 in 2012, Tk 6.66 and Tk 23.28 in 2011, Tk 6.21 and Tk 21.12 in 2010 and Tk 6.04 and Tk 20.11 in 2009.
The gasoline value for double range was Tk 450 for residential use from August 2009 to July 2015. The value was elevated in September 2015 to Tk 650, a 44.44 per cent enhance, in accordance with BERC knowledge.
The value was raised to Tk 800 in March 2017, a rise by 23.08 per cent, and to Tk 975 in July 2019, a 21.86 per cent enhance, and the speed is constant.
The only range gasoline value was Tk 400 in 2009, which was elevated to 600 in 2015, a 50 per cent enhance, to Tk 750 in 2017, a 25 per cent hike and to Tk 925 in 2019, registering a 23.33 per cent rise.