A result of wrong policy, graft

The National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports yesterday said the ongoing electricity crisis is neither a sudden crisis nor the result of a global crisis.

"The government's wrong policy on the energy sector and the corruption to protect the different local and foreign groups' interest created the crisis," the committee said in a press statement.

The statement, signed by an organiser of the committee, Ruhin Hossain Prince, also the general secretary of Communist Party of Bangladesh, demanded punishment for those who were involved in the wrong policy making and corruption.

"In the name of meeting the electricity crisis, the government signed contracts without any bidding process with the private power plants' owners having provision of providing capacity charges when the power plants are not in operation," the statement reads.

The statement mentioned that in the name of capacity charges, the government paid around Tk 54,000 crore to the power plants in the last three years. Among the charges, the private plant owners got Tk 42,000 crore.

The country has a total electricity generation capacity of 22,348 MW and the highest production was 14,782 MW in a day while there was no global crisis, it added.

"Which means one third of the power plants remain idle every day and get capacity charges."

Although the government has planned a one-hour loadshedding across the country, in reality the schedule is not being followed, especially outside Dhaka. In the rural areas, people are facing 8 to 10 hours of loadshedding, wrote the statement.

"As a result, the farmers couldn't be able to irrigate on time, fertiliser production stopped due to the lack of gas and the industries had to produce with fuel-based generators, which is increasing the production cost," the statement added.

The statement further said the power system master plan had both plans to import liquified natural gas and to increase the capacity of the state owned Bapex but the government only implemented the first one.

"Depending on the imported fuel is not enough to attain energy security. It can only build thousands of electricity generation, and cannot provide reliable power with an affordable cost," it added.