Liquidity Crisis May Deepen

The power and energy sector in Bangladesh has faced significant challenges, including a liquidity crisis due to fuel shortages and high capacity charges, despite a large reserve margin of power generation.

- Mollah Amzad Hossain

The anticipated financial relief for the sector was overshadowed by a nationwide students' job quota movement that intensified following the murder of a student, which diverted attention to political unrest and demands for the government's resignation, leaving the sector's financial crisis and future uncertain.

The power and energy sector has been one of the top discussion topics in the past couple of years. Despite having a huge power generation reserve margin, failure to generate the required power due to fuel shortage and payment of huge capacity charges has created a liquidity crisis for the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB). It was expected that the finance ministry would increase allocation for the power sector in the first month of the new financial year. However, it was subsided by the students’ job quota reform movement that turned into a mass upsurge following the gruesome murder of Abu Sayeed, a student at Begum Rokeya University in Rangpur. The entire attention of the nation was diverted toward that direction and the movement eventually transformed into a one-point demand – resignation of Sheikh Hasina’s government. It has now become uncertain when and how the sector could overcome the huge debt burden.