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The energy ministry has increased the gas tariff with effect from January 1.
According to the energy ministry, the subscribers have to pay Tk 400 per month for a double-burner stove and for a single-burner stove Tk 350 against the existing rates of Tk 390 and Tk 336 respectively.
The domestic consumers who use metre will have to pay Tk 130 for every thousand cubic feet of gas against the existing rate of Tk 124.
The rate for every thousand cubic feet of gas for power sector will be Tk 73.91 against existing rate of Tk 72 and the price for fertiliser factories has been re-fixed at Tk 63.41 against the previous rate of Tk 62.
For captive power generation units, the price for per thousand cubic feet of gas will be Tk 103.50 and for industrial sector and tea gardens the tariff will be Tk 148.13.
Commercial and seasonal price for per thousand cubic feet of gas has been fixed at Tk 233.12.
For compressed natural gas (CNG) stations, price for per thousand cubic feet of gas has been fixed at Tk 70.
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia endorsed the gas price hike proposal of the energy ministry Tuesday last.
State Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources AKM Mosharraf Hossain placed the price hike issue to the Prime Minister January 4 last.
The ministry raised the gas tariff to adjust the rate in accordance with the gas pricing policy guidelines set by the World Bank (WB).
With this hike, the gas price has risen 30 times since 1974. After assuming power in 2001, the coalition government increased the gas price thrice.
As per provisions of the gas-pricing framework, approved by the government last year, the energy ministry must restructure the energy price once in a year and review the same on quarterly-basis in accordance with the international fuel price.
(Note: This story was to be a part of another news item, headlined -- Gas crisis may intensify, tariff goes up -- and published in the January 14 issue of the FE. But because of oversight, this was dropped. The inadvertent mistake is regretted.)
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