Energy experts and economists in the country (barring those who serve the State) are mostly unanimous that raising the power tariff once again has no justification. Instead of scrutinising the reasons why generating electricity costs is so high in the country, the government has apparently decided to raise tariff from March 1 next. The irrational decision that has been taken is perplexing because it will do nothing except giving more pain to retail consumers, to industry and only aid in raising the cost of production across the board.
In times of such economic crises, governments around the world re-evaluate policies in an effort to reduce costs. Not so in Bangladesh. Here, when it comes to energy pricing, it's always business as usual because the State has a monopoly over the entire energy sector - from production to distribution. So, in a sense, the government is in business for itself. Profits generated from it also belong to the State. Not too long ago, the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) used to hold public hearings where various stakeholders could come and present their cases against proposals made by the ministry, the power division, the various utility companies for raising power tariffs. Those days are long gone now because BERC's wings have since been clipped.
Indeed, ever since BERC pushed to the sidelines, there have been no holding back on the arbitrary raising of power tariffs by the State as and when it pleased. The excuses used for such increases border on the ludicrous but that hasn't fazed policymakers a little bit. Supporting data or arguments sway anyone sitting in the decision maker's chair because there is no need to listen to the concerns of other stakeholders. Whatever the State decides is the final say, because the State knows best (or at least that's the official mantra these days).
Facts may be laid out in plain and simple language but to no avail. For instance, the fact that there is a generation capacity for 42 per cent surplus electricity, primarily due to the arbitrary manner in which contracts were handed out for setting up costly power plants, does not move policymakers at all. That there is excessive or even, questionable spending by more than one utility company or energy body and together all these factors contribute to the financial woes of the energy sector, appears to completely elude energy planners. The only solution they seem to come up with is raise the tariff, without giving a second thought to the socio-economic consequences.
So, instead of getting to the root cause as to why it costs so much to produce power, the only explanation (if it can be called that) given is that the widening gap between production costs and sales revenues must be narrowed and that means raise the tariff. It is interesting to note that although the policymakers promise a lot of things with each round of tariff raise, they always forget the pledges. For instance, when tariff for energy was last raised significantly, there was serious backlash from industry because it was feared that it could not afford those prices. The State had promised "uninterrupted supply" of said energy, but that never materialised. Time has surely arrived for the authorities to stop playing musical chairs and take some hard decisions on reducing the cost of energy production. Otherwise, much of industry may not be left in the near future with the regular raising of power tariffs.
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