Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan, the interim government’s adviser on the Ministry of Power, Energy, and Mineral Resources, urged businesspeople today to make competitive investments in the nation’s many sectors, particularly energy and power.
“The government has opened up all businesses for all business entrepreneurs to get jobs through competition. Now the days of obtaining business through favour and fear have gone,” he said.
The Power and Energy Adviser made this statement at a seminar today at the Economic Reporters Forum’s (ERF) auditorium in the capital called “Rapid Transition to Renewable: Role of Domestic Financial Institution.”
As a necessity for the nation’s export-focused apparel industry, Fouzul emphasised the interim government’s emphasis on boosting renewable energy (RE) and emphasised that there is no substitute for it in terms of generating electricity.
The seminar was chaired by ERF President Mohammad Refayet Ullah Mirdha and featured presentations from Hasan Mehedi, the chief executive officer of CLEAN, Ashanur Rahman, the business country manager for the City Bank, and Dr. Khondaker Golam Moazzem, the research director for the Centre for Policy Dialogue.
Chairperson of Centre for Environment and Participatory Research (CEPR) Gouranga Nandy made a presentation on the topic of the seminar and ERF general secretary Abul Kashem conducted the event.
Kabir said it is not true that the scarcity of land has been the main bottleneck in promotion of the solar power projects, and noted that there are huge lands in different government departments that remain unutilised and empty. “Those thousands of acres of land can be utilised for the solar power plants.” The adviser added.
The adviser also opposed the idea of tax exemption for importing different components of solar power like inverter, panel and structures saying that these should not be imported from abroad. “Rather, these should be produced locally like those are in India,” he added.
He also opposed the demand for reconsidering the cancelled 37 solar power plants which were selected on the basis of Quick Enhancement of Electricity and Energy Supply (Special Provision) Act 2010 and issued letter of intent (LOI) by the previous regime.
“There is no scope for reconsidering those projects as the High Court has already scrapped the Law.”
The Adviser hinted that the government would not allow any more independent power producer (IPP) plants to be set up in the private sector as it will have to set up power plants under merchant power plant policy (MPPP) from which the government will purchase a maximum 10-20 per cent power from the plant.
The government currently offers a guarantee to purchase all of the electricity produced by an IPP power plant, which is established under a private power generation strategy.
According to the adviser, the new regulation requires the private producer to pay a wheeling charge to sell electricity through his own buyer via the government grid system.
He noted that banks had funded numerous initiatives during the previous Awami League government that sought the opinions of the populace rather than the wealth of the investors.
Dr Khondaker Golam Moazzem said that the local banks are not often interested in financing the renewable energy projects as those are long-term ones and banks collect deposits on a short-term basis.
So, there is a risk in financing the long-term projects and the central bank takes initiative to cover the risk, he added.
Gouranga Nandy said that though the banks are doing green financing to implement renewable energy projects, there is no upward trend in the investment in solar energy as there is no specific guideline for the banks to invest in the sector.
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