PDB owes electricity firms Tk 330bn, state minister tells parliament

The Power Development Board owed local and foreign electricity producers and transmission firms a total of Tk 330 billion as of February 2024.

State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid informed parliament about the huge dues on Tuesday.

The companies include government, private, joint venture and foreign firms exporting power.

PDB’s dues to the government power producers and transmission company PGCB stood over Tk 103.91 billion and private ones over Tk 150 billion.

The PDB owes joint venture power stations more than Tk 24.17 billion and foreign companies, including India’s Adani, nearly Tk 53 billion.

The government recently paid the private power stations Tk 175.53 billion through bonds against subsidies.

Bangladesh has a capacity to produce more power than the demand, according to him.

From Jan 2009 until now, 26,240 MW of electricity has been added to the national grid, increasing the capacity to produce power to 30,277 MW, including from the captive power plants.

The highest amount of electricity was produced on Apr 30 this year at 16,477 MW.

But the production still cannot match the demand because of fuel shortage caused in the post-COVID era and during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

This has led to rolling outages at some places. Besides this, the demand has increased rapidly because of excessive heat.

The state minister hopes the government will soon be able to ensure undisrupted electricity supply everywhere.

In answer to a supplementary question, Nasrul said Bangladesh has called international tender for collection of minerals from the deep sea.

US-based Exxonmobil, Chevron and several other companies have shown interest in taking part in the initiative. They have collected the results of a 2D survey.

“We have a pre-bid meeting with them tomorrow (Wednesday). The bidding process will end in September. I hope we will be able to appoint a company by mid-2025. They will conduct 3D surveys and drilling,” he said.

The government estimates up to $30 billion investments will be made in this offshore exploration. If oil or gas is found, it will be possible to extract that after another seven to eight years.

Farida Yasmin, an MP from the seats reserved for women, questioned the government’s failure to ensure uninterrupted gas supply to industrial and household users alike.

Nasrul said Bangladesh is producing 1,700 million cubic feet of gas and importing 1,100 MMcf daily while the demand is 3,500 MMcf.

He urged the companies to write to the ministry specifying their shortage of gas.

He also said the government introduced liquified petroleum gas for household use with an aim to provide only the industries with pipeline gas.

The state minister informed parliament about a loss of Tk over 5.23 billion incurred by the 80 Palli Bidyut Samitis under the Rural Electrification Board in the 2021-22 fiscal year.

They earned nearly Tk 312.5 that fiscal year, but spent over Tk 317.91 billion after making a Tk 501.2 million profit in the previous financial year.

He said a readjustment led the bulk power tariff to rise above the retail level in 20221-22 fiscal year, causing the loss.