Power tariff hiked at retail level

Staff Reporter :
The government has increased the electricity tariff by 19 paisa per unit at retail level.
The power price has been hiked through an executive order on Thursday.
The new price will come into effect from January 1 this year.
State Minister for power, energy and mineral resources Nasrul Hamid told journalists about the power price adjustment on Thursday.
He said that the new power tariff would come into effect from current month (January) and consumers using post-paid meter will have to pay from February.
Prepayment meter consumers will have to add the adjusted tariff to their electricity bill from this month.
From now, electricity price will be adjusted in the first week of every month, the state minister said adding, ‘This price will be effective by executive order.
Consumers will now be informed about the price of electricity, whether it adjusts upward or downward, in the first week of every month.’
Nasrul Hamid also said that retail customers would have to buy electricity at the new price.
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) on Sunday (January 8) held a public hearing responding to the prayers of power generating companies to raise the electricity prices at retail level.
The hearing was held at 10:00am on that day at BIAM Foundation’s Shahid AKM Shamsul Huque Khan Auditorium where the BERC Chairman Abdul Jalil said a decision in this regard will be announced by January this year. Though, the government can coordinate the prices of electricity and gas at any time if it wants to do so. The cabinet has recently given a final approval to the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (Amendment) Act 2023 incorporating it.
On November 21 last, the price of electricity was increased by 19.92 per cent at the wholesale level. On that day, the price of per unit of electricity was fixed at Tk 6.20, up from Tk 5.17 earlier. The BERC announced the price responding to a review petition of Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) to raise power price at wholesale level.