The government of Bangladesh has raised the retail gas prices for public, private and captive power plants and also for industries and commercial users with effect from February 1. As per the new government announcement on Wednesday (January 18, 2023), the gas prices have been increased by almost three times for public and private power plants while almost double for captive power plants and industries, and significantly hiked for commercial users. However, prices for household consumers, CNG-run for motor vehicles and tea estates were kept unchanged.   Read more: BERC (amendment) Ordinance placed in JS allowing adjustment of gas, electricity prices without public hearing The Energy and Mineral Resources Division set the prices through a gazette notification issued on Wednesday applying the new amendment to the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) Act, which empowered the government to set all kinds of energy prices bypassing the regulator’s jurisdictions at any time. As per the gazette notification, the public and private power plants including the IPP and rental power plants will pay gas price at Tk 14 per unit (each cubic metre) instead of previous price of Tk 5.02 while the captive power plants, small power plants and commercial power plants will pay Tk 30 per unit instead of previous price of Tk 16. The large, medium and small industries will pay Tk 30 per unit against the previous price of Tk 11.98 for large, Tk11.78 for medium and Tk 10.78 for small, cottage and other industries. Read more: Pay production cost to get smooth supply of gas, electricity: PM Hasina tells industries The commercial users of gas like hotels and restaurants will pay Tk 30.50 instead of previous Tk 26.64 per unit.   The household consumers will continue to pay Tk 18 per unit for metered burners while Tk 990 for single burners and Tk 1080 for double burners each month. The CNG price remained unchanged at Tk 43 for the motor vehicles, while tea estates will pay Tk 11.93 per unit as usual, said the gazette notification. Read More: New gas found in Bhola field amid crisis Earlier, the BERC had raised the average gas price by 22.78 percent for the retail consumers, except for CNG-run vehicles, in the country with effect back from June 1 in 2022.

BNP on Tuesday announced a three-day demonstration programme in protest against the fresh hike in gas prices. The party also demanded the government to immediately revoke its decision of raising the gas prices and take steps to lower the prices of daily essentials. As part of the programmes, BNP’s all metropolitan city units, including Dhaka one, will stage demonstrations on June 9 while all district units will also observe the similar programme on June 11. Besides, all upazila units of the party will hold protest rallies on June 13. BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir came up with the announcement at a press conference at BNP Chairperson’s Gulshan office. Read: BNP demands neutral probe into Sitakunda fire He said their party’s all associate bodies will also stage demonstrations to mount pressure on the government to withdraw the gas price hike decision and control the prices of essential commodities. Fakhrul said prices of all essentials will now go up further as an impact of the fresh gas price hike.

Household users in five districts of south-western region, including Jashore and Khulna, stare at a hike in prices of gas supplied by the Sundarbans Gas Company Limited (SGCL). The Technical Evaluation Committee of Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) has recommended new gas price for double burner oven at Tk 1,080 from existing Tk 975 and for single burner oven at Tk 990 from existing Tk 925 at household consumer level in the five districts where the SGCL is the distributor. The SGCL, however, sought to increase the gas price to Tk 2,100 (115% increase) for two double burner and Tk 2,000 (116% increase) for single burner oven from the existing price. Read: Proposed gas price hike: Petrobangla under fire at public hearing The SGCL officials placed the proposal during the second day of the public hearing of the BERC at BIAM auditorium in the city on Tuesday. BERC Chairman Abdul Jalil, members Maqbul-e-E Elahi Chowdhury, Bazlur Rahman and Mohammad Abu Farooq were present at the hearing. While making his introductory speech Abdul Jalil criticised the gas distribution companies for not taking the possible social impacts of the price escalation. He said the interest of the masses should be considered first before taking any decision. Read: Gas price hike proposal: 3-day public hearing begins Monday “The interest of the people is the first”, he said adding, the social impact of the price increase should have been included on the price increase applications.  But the gas companies have overlooked it”, he observed. The BERC technical committee also made its recommendations to raise the gas price per cubic meter to Tk5.34 from the existing Tk 4.44 for power sector, Tk 15.50 from Tk 13.85 for captive power, Tk 5.34 from Tk4.44 for fertiliser factories, Tk12.65 from 10.70 for tea industries, Tk27.60 from Tk23 for commercial consumers, Tk 49.50 from Tk43 while Tk 18 from 12.60 for metered gas oven at household consumers.

State-run Petrobangla’s proposal to hike retail gas price faced stiff opposition from groups representing consumers, citizens, businesses and professionals at a public hearing that began at the city’s BIAM auditorium on Monday. Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) is holding the hearing responding to the proposals of eight gas sector entities including Petrobangla to raise gas price by 117 per cent. The hearing will continue till Wednesday. The consumer rights groups said that any rise in gas price will be totally illogical and unfair at this moment when the people are struggling price hike of essentials resulting from Covid-19 pandemic shock. BERC chairman Abdul Jalil, who presided over the sessions, expressed his resentment on the proposals of different gas companies saying that their data on financial and technical issues are mismatching with each other’s. He said there should be a central data system from which accurate information could be found before taking decision on any issue in the gas sector. He also said the data presented by the Petrobangla could not satisfy the people. On the first day of the hearing, officials of Petrobangla and Gas Transmission Company Limited separately placed their proposals in two separate sessions in the morning and after lunch. Also read: Gas price hike proposal: 3-day public hearing begins Monday The Petrobangla officials claimed that the annual expenditure of the organization will increase to Tk 65,225.75 crore due to import of LNG (liquefied natural gas) and other cost escalations. As a result, on an average gas price needs to be increased to Tk 20 from the existing Tk 12.60 per cubic meter. A technical team of the BERC disagreed with the claim of Petrobangla and placed its report saying that state-run agency still has a unutilized fund of about Tk 2500 crore as surplus after meeting its expenses. Opposing the claim of the Petrobangla, Prof Shumsul Alam, advisor of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) challenged the authenticity of the data and statistics provided by its officials. He said he had sought different data from Petrobangla and other seven companies, but they did not provide it, which is a violation of the BERC Act. Also read: Further hike in gas price will come as a big blow to masses: speakers He raised a number of questions on the merit of Petrobangla's proposal and demanded for a cut in its unfair expenses and reducing the system loss instead of increasing the price of gas to adjust its cost. He also urged the BERC to form a high level commission composed from representatives of the consumer groups to ensure good governance in the gas sector. President of Bangladesh Sadharan Nagorik Samaj Mohiuddin termed the proposal of the Petrobangla and GTCL baseless and unfair and misleading. “If any rise in gas price comes on the basis of the Petrobangla proposal, it will be disastrous”, he said. Eminent energy expert Dr Badrul Imam said the current crisis in the gas sector is deeply rooted in the government’s failure to conduct exploration. “In last 20 years, there has been no major exploration works conducted in the gas sector”, he observed. He said it will be totally illogical to raise gas prices for import of only 3 per cent gas from the international spot market.

BNP on Friday strongly opposed the government’s move to hike gas tariffs and warned that people will not accept it in any way. “There's a proposal to raise the gas prices of double-burner stove connections to Tk 2,100 from Tk 975 and single-burner stove 2,000 from Tk 925 at the consumer level," said BNP senior leader Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain. Speaking at a discussion, he said a threefold increase in gas prices has been proposed unreasonably. “We would like to clearly say that gas prices cannot be hiked. Any increase in the gas tariffs won’t be accepted. We strongly oppose such a move,” the BNP leader said. BNP’s Dhaka south and north city units jointly arranged the programme at the Jatiya Press Club, marking party founder Ziaur Rahman’s 86th birth anniversary. Read: Govt has evidences on BNP’s hiring lobbyists abroad: Info Minister Mosharraf, a BNP standing committee member, said the government raised the prices of fuel oil, diesel and electricity a few days back, causing serious public sufferings. He said the government is implementing big projects taking money from people’s pockets and creating scopes for the ruling party to get big commissions. The BNP leader alleged that the ruling party leaders are siphoning off huge money abroad through indulging in plundering and ‘corruption’. He said the current government is least bothered about public sufferings since it is not elected by people. “We’ll no longer tolerate the unfair activities of the government. We must ensure the fall of this regime to get rid of all these injustices. Let’s all work together to attain this goal,” Mosharraf said. About 12 Human Rights (HR) organisations’ a letter to United Nations to ban Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) from deploying the peacekeeping missions, he said Awami League thought that it would be able to overcome the consequences of oppression and suppression by keeping people’s mouths shut. Read: Filing ‘fictitious’ cases now a regular matter: Fakhrul “But the entire world now knows that there are no human rights in Bangladesh... The sanctions were also imposed by the US on an organisation in Bangladesh and its some high officials. It’s a matter of shame for us as a nation,” the BNP leader observed. He said Bangladesh is being humiliated in this way only because of Awami League's lust for staying in power by force. Mosharraf called upon the people of all walks of life and all democratic forces to get united to overcome the current situation of the country and restore its dignity by establishing a democratic and elected government.  “No autocratic regime will willingly quit power without a push...The people of Bangladesh could oust autocratic ruler Ershad. Of course, we're hopeful that the people of this country will overthrow the current despotic regime in the same way to restore democracy,” he said.

Dhaka, July 9 (UNB) – Criticising Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for defending gas-price hike, BNP on Tuesday said the government did it only to facilitate some ruling party men in the name of the country’s development.

Dhaka, July 7 (UNB) - Workers Party President Rashed Khan Menon on Sunday alleged that the recent gas price hike was aimed at creating a market for LPG in the country.   Speaking in Parliament standing on the point of order, he also said such hike in the gas price without discussion in the House is a disregard to the House by the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (Berc).   Citing the minister concerned that the price hike was made to adjust the gas price and reduce the subsidy, Menon said whereas India is importing 1000 cft LNG at a price of US$ 6.5, Bangladesh is procuring it at US$ 10.5.   He said the government has already increased the LPG price by 32 percent. “Now, we see that by this price adjustment, the price of LPG has also been increased. When the supply of CNG will be stopped, CNG stations will be turned into LPG stations. Now, this is the matter of debate whether this decision of price hike has been taken to create the market for LPG,” he said.   The Workers Party chief said the hike will make impacts on household, industries and transportation which means there will be an effect on the whole economy.   “There’s reaction among the people ….there’re resentment and disappointment among them. I’m myself also disappointed. Because, in the budget discussion, I praised the state minister for power and energy for his success and asked him to discuss the price hike matter in Parliament so that all MPs can participate in it,” he said.   Menon said after the approval of the budget, the decision of gas price hike came within only four hours. “This is a complete disregard to Parliament… this was done just bypassing Parliament. Honourable Speaker you’re the guardian of the House. You must look after the matter,” he said addressing Deputy Speaker Advocate Fazle Rabbi Miah who was in the chair at that time.   He urged the Speaker to ask the state minister for power to inform the House of the matter. “The government will take the decision and there’s no doubt about it. But it’s the responsibility of the government to listen to the people and obey Parliament,” he said.   He said that Berc held mass hearings and there was a case pending with the court regarding the matter. “The gas price was increased bypassing that case. So, the decision is illegal and defamatory to the court. They defamed Parliament and the court and above all people,” he added.   Menon also called upon the Speaker to allow his notice submitted for discussing the matter in the House.   He also said Jasod MP Hasanul Haq Inu, AL MP Moin Uddin Khan Badal, Workers Party MP Fazle Hossain Badsha, Mustafa Lutfullah and Lutfun Nesa Khan also signed the notice.  

Dhaka, July 7 (UNB) – Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader on Sunday said hartal has lost its appeal as people hardly respond to such programmes.