B Mirror Report:The Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) has not taken into consideration the proposal to raise the price of government-supplied liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

BERC Chairman Jalal Ahmed said, “The state-owned company LP Gas Limited had proposed a price hike, but we have not accepted the proposal so far.”

Recently, LP Gas Limited proposed increasing the price of a 12.5 kg LPG cylinder from Tk 825 to Tk 925. The proposal, signed by the company’s Managing Director Md. Yusuf Hossain Bhuiyan, was submitted to BERC.

In the application, the company mentioned the need to stop cross-filling and requested adjustments due to rising local transportation and operational costs at the dealer level. The company also stated that since private companies’ LPG prices are much higher (currently Tk 1,323), the government’s LPG price needs to be adjusted.

It is noteworthy that on May 4 of this year, BERC raised the government LPG price from Tk 690 to Tk 825 without holding a public hearing. The Consumer Association of Bangladesh (CAB) strongly protested the move.

CAB’s energy adviser Dr. M Shamsul Alam said, “BERC previously increased prices illegally without holding a public hearing. Any such attempt again would be completely unacceptable.”

For reference, against the annual national demand of nearly 1.5 million tonnes of LPG, the state-owned LP Gas Limited supplied only 12,723 tonnes in the fiscal year 2023–24.

However, the general public rarely has access to government LPG in the open market. Reports indicate that most of the supply goes to certain government or institutional sectors. Although a small portion is supposed to be released to the market, there are frequent allegations that these supplies end up being sold on the black market.