Gas price hike in these times inhuman: Nagorik Samaj

The gas price hike announced by the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) is illogical, unfair, inhuman and undemocratic, a national non-political civil society organisation said Sunday.

In the media statement, Nagorik Samaj convener Mohiuddin Ahmed said that the price hike proposal by Petrobangla and the distribution companies was influenced by the syndicate.

They even failed to present any logic and proof in favour of their illegal proposal at the public hearing, which he termed a mockery.

"On the other hand, we, on behalf of the consumers, could establish that the gas price can be reduced further if corruption, looting in the name of system loss and providing exorbitant profit to the private sector entrepreneurs can be stopped," the statement said.    

"The commission chairman even assured us of taking necessary steps after reviewing fair logic and proofs… But it ultimately announced the 22.78% price hike proposal made by their technical evaluation committee, which proves that public hearing is nothing but a mockery and no logic or thoughts of the citizens is taken into consideration," said the statement.    

"It is also unfortunate that the commission did not even contemplate the present living standard of the people, spiralling prices of commodities, inconsistency between income and expenditure and the global economic situation," it said.