Public hearing on bulk electricity price hike underway 

A day-long public hearing on the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) proposal to hike bulk electricity tariffs by 66% began on Wednesday.

Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) is holding the hearing at the BIAM Auditorium in Dhaka from 11am to listen to the arguments from the stakeholders in the energy sector.

In the proposal, BPBD said if the bulk electricity price is not raised then it will face a shortfall of Tk30,000 crore in the 2022 calendar year due to electricity purchase from expensive liquid oil-based plants and also gas price hike (which is now under process).

Therefore, it asked the regulator to increase the bulk electricity price to offset its expected deficit, said a source at BERC.

At present, BPDB sells per unit of electricity at Tk5.17 to the electricity distribution companies which was increased in the last tariff order in February 2020.

On the other hand, BPDB's purchase cost of electricity from the oil-based rental and quick rental power plants varies from Tk3 per unit to Tk16 per unit and even more.

Due to this high-cost purchase and sales at a lower rate, BPDB has been incurring losses gradually which was being tackled by the government subsidy.

In 2010-11, the government provided a Tk4,511.90 crore subsidy to BPDB which was increased to Tk11,777.91 crore in the 2020-2021 fiscal year.