The government has decided to retain the previous price of bulk electricity for now, said the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) on Thursday (13 October).

At present, the state-owned Power Development Board (PDB) buys electricity in bulk at Tk3.46 kWt-Tk43.42kWt and sells to the distributors at Tk5.17kWt.

Though BERC had previously announced that the price of bulk electricity will be hiked by 15%-17%, they announced in a virtual meeting on Thursday that the price would remain the same for now.

On 18 May, the energy regulator held a public hearing on a bulk electricity price hike proposal of the PDB. However, there was no tariff announcement in the last three and a half months after the hearing.

At the public hearing, the board proposed to raise the bulk electricity tariffs by 66% to Tk8.56kWt.

However, the technical committee of the energy regulatory commission had prepared the tariff adjustment plan with a 15%-17% bulk power price hike, as Tk17,000 crore has been set aside as power subsidy for the PDB for the current fiscal year, according to sources.

The last bulk electricity price was announced on 27 February 2020, when the energy regulator hiked the price by 8% to Tk5.17kWt from Tk4.77kWt. Then the board used to buy power at Tk3.46 kWt-Tk43.42kWt.