No proposal made to cancel subsidy for farmers: Power Division

The Power Division in a statement Sunday said it has not proposed cancelling the existing power or electricity subsidy for farmers, contrary to a statement of the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), reports UNB.

The clarification alleged that the TIB statement was 'biased' and relied on assumptions, without any supporting documents.

The TIB in a statement on 20 May demanded cancellation of rental power plants, and amendment to the Power System Master Plan 2016 saying that the power production in the country continued to rise despite meeting demand.

This creates an extra burden on the people as huge payments are being made to rental power plants in the form of subsidy.

This is totally a misuse of wealth, said the TIB.

Reacting to the TIB statement, the Power Division said that when the whole world has become helpless and economies are shuttered due to the coronavirus pandemic, such analysis by the TIB is not only biased, but also unexpected and ill-motivated.

Trashing the TIB allegations on subsidy cancellation, the Power Division said such allegations are misinterpreted and also only a suppression of truth.

No such recommendation for cancelling the farmers' subsidy was made from the power Division or Power Cell.

Specially, the power tariff for irrigation is lowest.

The 20 per cent subsidy for farmers still remained in force.

About the TIB's observation on excess power production, the Power Division said many countries in the world including India and Germany have over 70 per cent reserve margin in their power generation.

The logical reason behind the reserve margin is to ensure adequate power supply during any disaster and maintenance of power plants, said the Power Division.

About TIB's call for promotion of renewable energy, the Power Division said the government has taken initiative to promote renewable energy.

But the reality is that renewable energy is not suitable for Bangladesh due to scarcity of land.

"We have been working to ensure highest utilisation of renewable energy through adopting our indigenous technology. Despite bottlenecks, Bangladesh has been the country of highest solar home systems," said the Power Division.

It mentioned that renewable energy is the proven potential energy for which the government has been working and as part of the government initiative, priority is being given to install solar panels on the rooftops of public and private buildings.