Power should be in focus of all initiatives: ICC-B

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FE Report
The private sector should be allowed to participate in setting up power plants with its own financing sources within a realistic framework to ease the nagging electricity crisis in the country, a commerce chamber said.
"Given Bangladesh's foreign currency reserves and the latest credit rating, the task of finding finance should not be insurmountable," said the bulletin editorial of International Chamber of Commerce-Bangladesh (ICC-B).
Power generation, transmission, distribution and hydrocarbon exploration need huge investments and the government should be innovative, bold and decisive in this regard, it said.
Energy is a vital ingredient to economic growth and for Bangladesh to grow at a rate of about eight, the availability of power must increase at a much higher pace, the ICC said.
"The country should adopt a policy of zero tolerance to any obstruction to this policy," it added.
Bangladesh can follow the experience of the Philippines or the success story of the Indian state of West Bengal, the ICC felt.
The sources of inputs for power generation must now become diversified, the editorial said adding, "The country must rely on local coal moving away from gas dependence, and imported coal and LNG should be regarded as long-term solutions."
The ICC lamented that most of the power plants are gas-based on assumption that the country has huge gas reserve, but it proved to be wrong.
The gas supply is currently under 2,000mmcf against a day to meet demand of over 2,200 mmcf, it said.
"It is believed that there are extensive reserves of unexplored gas but the cost of exploration has increased," it added.
Bangladesh has estimated reserves of about 3.3 billion tonnes of coal with 884 million tonnes being proven reserves, but the country is a rare example in that it does not use its coal for power generation.
The chamber cautioned that fuel oil should be a short?run solution as the generation cost is high.
The government has drawn up an ambitious new plan for power generation and it will increase 9,276mw additional electricity by 2015, the ICC said adding, "If this plan is translated into concrete action, this will help overcome the current power shortage."

It, however, said given the manner in which demand is increasing, it is doubtful if even this will cater to the additional demand generated by the targeted growth rate of the economy of over 6.6 per cent.