Another upward adjustment of power tariff likely soon

FE Team | Published: July 13, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

S M Jahangir
Yet another upward adjustment of power tariff is likely soon as the government is considering price hike of natural gas which is used for generation of electricity.
Power and Energy Adviser Tapan Chowdhury gave Thursday such indication while talking to newsmen at his secretariat office after holding a coordination meeting with different power entities.
Responding to a query on the possibility of further adjustment of electricity prices, the adviser said: "The power tariff will go up if the price of natural gas is increased."
The Energy Division recently placed a proposal on enhancement of gas prices to the Council of Advisers for helping reduce the losses incurred by the state-run gas and petroleum companies, sources said.
The upward adjustment of gas price will require to increase the power tariff to recoup the losses of power producers, Tapan, who is heading a high-powered committee on scrutinising the proposed hike of the electrify tariff.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs with Finance and Planning Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam in the chair formed the committee June 04 to examine the proposal for further enhancement of electrify tariff.
Emphasising on a thorough scrutiny of the proposed hike of power tariff, the finance adviser said that the government needed to evaluate whether any fresh upward adjustment would hurt the consumers.
He, however, informed the newsmen that the power tariffs in the country were still lower than that of many countries around the world.
The interim government had raised the power tariff by 5.0 per cent from March 01 last for all types of consumers, including residential, industrial and agricultural.
Despite such enhancement, the major development partners, especially the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, are pressing the government for further adjustment of the power tariff.
However, the power and energy adviser also informed the media men that a total 1200 megawatt (mw) of electricity would be added to the national grid by the end of 2008.
Of the total, some 600mw of power is to be available by the next September, Tapan said.
Apart from that, the caretaker government has also a plan to sign agreements on installation of new power plants, having total generation capacity of 4000mw, he added.
Moreover, the government will make the arrangements so that a total of 6200mw electricity are available within a few years, he told the newsmen.
At the coordination meeting, the power adviser set specific targets of reducing the systems losses for the state-owned power entities.
With the targets, the Power Development Board will require to bring down its systems loss to 14.5 per cent, followed by Rural Electrification Board (REB) to 12 per cent, Dhaka Electric Supply Authority (DESA) to 18 per cent, Dhaka Electric Supply Company Limited (DESCO) to 12.5 per cent and West Zone Power Company to 12 per cent.