In response to the opposition's query about fuel and power crises and offer of help with a team of technical experts to address those, Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed unveiled a detailed government plan in parliament. Although the state minister for power, energy and mineral resources was present in parliament, it was the home minister who dwelt elaborately on the issue. The opposition's suggestion for forming a cell or taskforce apparently to meet the exigency was bypassed. That the crisis was inherited from previous regimes is quite known. There is no point referring to that time and again. What the government can do right now to tide over the crises makes sense. The plan disclosed in parliament involves mostly long-term measures with the earliest one expected to be completed in 18 months. This concerns the addition of yet another floating storage and regasification unit to the existing two.
But factories and industries cannot wait for that long. Many manufacturing units have already been closed and others running below capacity due to shortage of fuel. Let alone the disruption of normal life due to prolonged non-supply of gas to household ovens, the shortage of gas supply to the manufacturing and productive sector now threatens production and availability of daily essentials. The plan for building a land-based liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal is fine but when will it go into operation? Certainly not before the planned FSRU. Under the plan, a 620-megawatt thermal power plant will be built and the second phase of 1,320-megawatt Payra coal-fired power plant activated. It is a roadmap for power plants, when completed, the government thinks, will make the nation free from power crisis. But this will not happen before 2030. Then the three new rental power companies approved with no capacity charge cannot operate unless they are supplied fuels imported only by Petrobangla.
The problem lies with the wrong policy of importing refined oil. Bangladesh has no storage facility for crude oil for refining. India's windfall profit from imported Russian crude oil can be an example of how such facilities not only meet the domestic need but can also be a good source of foreign exchange income. FSRUs, moreover, run the risk of accidents at the time of transfer of LNG from cargo vessels if the weather is rough. The plan does not include construction of large storage and refinement facilities. This means the dependence on refined petroleum products cannot be overcome.
Evidently, there is no immediate solution to the crises with the Middle East stalemate lingering. The country has seven coal-fired power plants including the Rampal power station. How are they performing? Not all of them are operating at full capacity production. Now that the country is in desperation, it has little choice but to look for their capacity production and procurement of coal from any source nearby. If import from Adani Power Limited can be continued, why not the possibility of importing electricity from neighbouring countries including Nepal and India be explored? Desperate situation needs desperate solution. When adversarial political relations notwithstanding commerce and trade with neighbouring countries go on, such commercial ventures should be given the go-head in the interest of saving factories and industries and by extension the economy.
