For a rational fuel price
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
THE last reduction in fuel oil price was not substantive. If it was really intended to provide the benefits to the common users or the economy in general, the cut in prices should have been deeper, reflecting the latest, downswing in prices thereof in the international market. Such a cut would have provided some cushion to the government to keep its subsidy low while giving a positive stimulus to the economy and relief to all groups of energy users.
When the prices were last raised in Bangladesh, the then international price of oil per barrel was $145. The price had dipped to $87 per barrel at the time of the previous adjustment in the domestic market done by the caretaker government. The consumers in Bangladesh got then a marginal benefit of only 11 per cent.
Oil prices recently dropped in the international market to nearly $36 a barrel. But in Bangladesh the price has lately been reduced and nominally again.
Bangladeshi consumers are buying it at two or three times its real price. The users elsewhere in the world are getting the instant benefit of the drastic fall in the international oil price.
All concerned would agree that the government should not bear too big a burden of subsidy on fuel. But the government must not also put a heavy burden, by not adjusting the domestic prices properly, on the users when the price of oil has really plummeted.
There is no strong reason for the government not to bring down the fuel oil price to its rational level immediately. The users are too keen to see that government doing it without wasting time.
Maruf Khan
Uttara, Dhaka
When the prices were last raised in Bangladesh, the then international price of oil per barrel was $145. The price had dipped to $87 per barrel at the time of the previous adjustment in the domestic market done by the caretaker government. The consumers in Bangladesh got then a marginal benefit of only 11 per cent.
Oil prices recently dropped in the international market to nearly $36 a barrel. But in Bangladesh the price has lately been reduced and nominally again.
Bangladeshi consumers are buying it at two or three times its real price. The users elsewhere in the world are getting the instant benefit of the drastic fall in the international oil price.
All concerned would agree that the government should not bear too big a burden of subsidy on fuel. But the government must not also put a heavy burden, by not adjusting the domestic prices properly, on the users when the price of oil has really plummeted.
There is no strong reason for the government not to bring down the fuel oil price to its rational level immediately. The users are too keen to see that government doing it without wasting time.
Maruf Khan
Uttara, Dhaka