Electricity price hiked by 5% at consumer level

The government has hiked the retail price of electricity by 5 percent bypassing the public hearing of the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission.
The hike will be effective from January, according to a notice from the ministry of power, energy and mineral resources.

Earlier, during a hearing on January 8, the technical evaluation committee of the BERC had recommended raising the retail electricity price by 15 percent. BERC was supposed to declare the new price within 60 working days of the hearing. 

The move to hike the retail price of electricity comes after the price was hiked by 19.92 percent at the producers' end in December 2022.

While announcing the bulk electricity price hike in November last year, Nasrul Hamid, the state minister for power, energy and mineral resources, and BERC Chairman Abdul Jalil assured that the electricity price at the retail level would not increase.

But the six distributors began submitting their proposals to hike the electricity price by an equal percentage in the same week.

The electricity hike was made bypassing the BERC public hearing after the cabinet last month approved the proposal to amend the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission Act 2003 to include a provision that would allow the government to adjust the prices of gas, electricity and fuel in special circumstances.

Before this, BERC held public hearings for adjusting gas and electricity prices and announced its decision 90 days later.