Editorial
Gas tariff raise
It could have been less exacting on the consumer
The government has decided to increase the price of gas for the first time in more than 4 years. However, it is the timing of the increase in particular, among other things, which cause us concern. We feel too that the percentage of increase is rather high, and the sector affected too wide which is bound to have an effect on the consumer's cost of living index, particularly those at the lower rung of the income groups.
In all honesty, the public could have done without a price increase in the first place, who are finding it hard, as it is, to make both ends meet with the prices of almost all essentials going through the roof. That, along with the impending Ramadan, when, given our experience of the past, price of everything is bound to go up notwithstanding the commitment of the government to keep the prices in check, the increase couldn't have come at a worst time.
The price rise, we are told, is to create a fund for the development of the gas sector where the performance of the entire system is to be overhauled with the more than seven hundred fifty crore taka that the increase will fetch.
But given that all the sectors except the CNG will have to pay around 11 percent more from next September, inevitably it will be the consumer who will have to bear the brunt of the increase. Predictably, with the increase in gas price, the cost of production of electricity and as a consequence of all consumer goods will go up. Likewise, we fear that the cost of fertilizer would go up too with the prospect of the farmers being put under severe strain unless the government intervenes through subsidising this and other agricultural inputs.
While there is nothing wrong with idea of a gas development fund, one wonders whether that could not been done without taxing the public. And whether the gas sector could not have gone for increasing its efficiency, reducing its wasteful expenditure and, above all, cutting down the system loss to help generate funds for development of the sector.
We would like to suggest that the rate of increase be reconsidered. At the same time we believe that the government should feel obliged to ensure enhanced efficiency of the sector as well as the uninterrupted and adequate supply of gas to the private consumers as well as the industries now that the price of gas has been increased.
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