He made the statement while briefing reporters through a videoconference about the allocation of his ministry in the upcoming national budget 2020-21 scheduled to be placed in partiament on Thursday.

Earlier on March 22 just before the start of the government-declared general holidays to prevent coronavirus outbreak, the Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry announced  that the household consumers will not be charged extra for delayed payment of gas bills until June this year due to coronavirus outbreak.

At that time, separate circulars from the Power Division and the Energy Division were issued in this regard.

Nasrul Hamid said it is now not possible to extend the time for delayed payment of bills without surcharge as his ministry could not afford such a huge unpaid bills.

“It’s not affordable anymore to allow delayed payment whatever the situation is”, he told reporters in the virtual press conference.

He also informed that the Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry will have a proposed budget of Tk 30736.38 crore in the coming fiscal 2020-21.    

Of this, Power Division has proposed to have a total outlay of development budget of Tk 27,597.73 crore of which Tk 24,803.93 crore will come from the  Finance Ministry as budget allocation while ECA-financing is Tk 1837 crore (foreign loan), and the Power Division itself will finance Tk 955.84 crore.

The Energy and Mineral Resources Division will have the total budget of Tk 3138.65 crore of which  the allocation from the Finance Ministry is Tk 1835.72 crore, while Tk 260.29 crore from Gas Development Fund (GDF), and Tk 1042.74 crore from self financing from the Energy Division.

He said the Power Division will have main focus on implementation of power transmission and distribution projects to ensure uninterrupted electricity supply while Energy Division’s main focus will be on gas transmission pipeline construction and single point mooring line construction for petroleum fuel transportation.