The Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) sets the prices of gas, electricity, LPG, furnace oil and jet fuel, but has yet to gain authority over diesel, petrol, octane and kerosene pricing.

BERC requires formal regulations before it can exercise pricing power over the four liquid fuels. In 2012, the commission asked the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources for its views on proposed rules. Fourteen years later, it has received neither an opinion nor a decision.

Sources close to the matter said the rules remain unimplemented because of a belief within government that granting BERC control over liquid fuels would erode the ministry’s authority.

Under the law, BERC has the primary authority to set electricity and fuel prices through public hearings. In January 2023, however, the then Awami League government passed the BERC (Amendment) Bill to give itself direct authority to set prices by executive order through gazette notifications. The government has adjusted prices of the four fuels monthly since March 2024, in line with movements in Brent crude on international markets.

Prices for all four fuels were up by BDT 20 a litre on September 20, raising fears of higher living costs. Transport fares, food prices and agricultural costs have already begun to rise, with economists expressing concern that inflation could increase.

Consumers have no direct access to information on how the government’s pricing mechanism accounts for international market price increases, smuggling risks or the cost of each product. Price notifications are issued using figures supplied by the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation and the Energy Division, an approach unchanged across the former Awami League government, the subsequent interim administration and the current government.

There were allegations that the Awami League government amended the law on the advice of former Energy Division and BPC officials. The change essentially created a major source of state revenue while leaving BPC, the state-owned fuel buyer, without accountability for its purchases. The government cited the risk of state financial losses from fluctuations in global oil prices, BPC losses and stock-related issues when it amended the law. Nasrul Hamid, then state minister for power, energy and mineral resources, played a leading role in the move, alongside several bureaucrats.

Consumer rights organisations say transferring pricing power to BERC would bring public hearings and create an opportunity for irregularities in BPC’s fuel procurement to come to light. They also argue that giving BERC the power would remove the government’s ability to raise prices abruptly.

“If BERC were handed the power to price strategically important fuels, the entire accounting of the oil trade would come to BERC,” Maqbul-E-Elahi Chowdhury, a former BERC member, told Bonik Barta. “Any price increase would have to be justified at a BERC public hearing.”

He said the main reason the regulations have remained stalled is that the Energy Division does not want to relinquish its authority and that past governments had been reluctant to do so because they believed the ministry’s authority could be diminished.

The draft rules governing retail petroleum pricing have been stalled for more than a decade. BERC officials said the 2012 drafts were resubmitted in 2023, late 2024 and January 2025 without a response from the ministry.

BERC Chairman Jalal Ahmed told Bonik Barta that the ministry eventually requested a single consolidated regulation to replace three separate draft frameworks prepared in 2012 covering stockpiling, transport and retail tariffs. A consolidated draft was finalised and sent to the ministry, but no decision has been made.

“Senior ministry officials believed that handing the pricing of these strategically important fuels to the commission could lead it to take reckless decisions, creating risks for the state’s economy,” a senior BERC official told Bonik Barta on condition of anonymity, adding that the former interim government also failed to act out of similar concerns.

BERC currently sets monthly LPG prices because of a High Court order obtained after the former government refused to hand over authority voluntarily. The commission has been setting LPG prices since 2021 under the court’s decision.

The Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) has called for BERC to be given authority to set prices for all energy products. It has also filed several High Court writ petitions seeking to ensure BERC’s authority over fuel-product pricing. CAB has already obtained an order in a writ concerning BERC’s authority to set LPG prices, following which the commission has been setting LPG prices.

“The government needs to be made accountable to consumers in the fuel pricing process,” M Shamsul Alam, CAB’s energy adviser, told Bonik Barta, noting that the organisation is awaiting a ruling on its petition.