Gas, electricity bill payment: Surcharge applicable after June 30

State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid on Wednesday said time will not be extended further after June 30 to pay delayed gas and electricity bills without any surcharge.

He made the statement while briefing reporters through a videoconference about the allocation of his ministry in the upcoming national budget 2020-21 scheduled to be placed in parliament on Thursday.

Earlier on March 22 just before the start of the government-declared general holidays to prevent coronavirus outbreak, the Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry announced that the household consumers will not be charged extra for delayed payment of gas bills until June this year due to coronavirus outbreak.

At that time, separate circulars from the Power Division and the Energy Division were issued in this regard.

Nasrul Hamid said it is now not possible to extend the time for delayed payment of bills without surcharge as his ministry could not afford such a huge unpaid bills.

“It’s not affordable anymore to allow delayed payment whatever the situation is”, he told reporters in the virtual press conference.

He also informed that the Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry will have a proposed budget of Tk 307.3638 billion (Tk 30736.38 crore) in the coming fiscal 2020-21.    

Of this, Power Division has proposed to have a total outlay of development budget of Tk 27,597.73 crore of which Tk 248.0393 billion (Tk 24,803.93 crore) will come from the  Finance Ministry as budget allocation while ECA-financing is Tk 18.97 billion (Tk 1837 crore) (foreign loan), and the Power Division itself will finance Tk 9.5584 billion (Tk 955.84 crore), reports UNB.