Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal (BSD) have placed a formal proposal to the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) to hold a public hearing for reducing power tariff instead of increasing it, reports UNB.
The left-leaning parties, under a joint political alliance, submitted their formal proposal to the energy watchdog body Thursday.
"We've submitted our proposal taking into consideration the present reality in the energy sector after the significant fall in petroleum prices on global market," CPD head Ruhin Hossain Prince told the news agency.
He said the issue of reducing power tariff at both the bulk and retail levels deserves a great consideration as the prices of petroleum fuel are falling on the global market which created a scope for decreasing the power tariff locally.
"In most cases in the past, both the government and the BERC usually put a card of fuel price up to raise the power tariff. But this time, the card is going in favour of the common consumers following the fuel price fall globally," he argued.
Prince and BSD leader Bazlur Rashid Firoz submitted the proposal to the BERC on behalf of their two political parties against the backdrop of the watchdog body's notice for holding series of public hearings on January 20-25 in response to appeals filed by different power utilities.
The two parties mentioned in their proposal that there is no justification to raise the power tariff. Rather, decreasing the power tariff will be wise and prudent, they said.
Earlier, the BERC fixed a schedule to hold a series of public hearings on the proposals placed by different utility bodies to raise power tariff at bulk and retail level.
CPB leader Ruhin Hossain Prince termed 'totally illogical' the proposals of the utilities to raise power tariff even one year elapses.
Meanwhile, a top official at the BERC said they would place the CPB-BSD proposal to the highest level of the watchdog body for their consideration. "The proposal might be incorporated in the current move of the BERC for public hearing," he said.
