Energy & Power

Column
Reverse Swing

The Masters of Business
Farid Hossain

We can't blame the government for raising the price of CNG or Compressed Natural Gas, used mainly by road transports.

The hike was inevitable even though critics have questioned the jump the price has made _ almost double. At Tk. 8.50 per meter the CNG price had been the cheapest fuel in the country _ much below the price of diesel and petrol before last week's hike to take the price to Tk. 16.75 per meter.

Despite this big leap in price CNG remains the country's cheapest fuel. To keep the CNG price this cheap the state-run Petrobangla has been paying the price. It has been incurring huge loss even though the growing use of CNG has saved the country at least 4 billion takas that would have been spent for imported fuel.

So, the authorities had no other alternative but to spike the price. The hike will not end Petrobangla's miseries, but it will definitely ease its plight. This the first point in favor of the hike. The second one is no weaker. Only those who can afford a better price have been the main beneficiaries of the abnormally low CNG price.

Few would dismiss this argument. When the government introduced CNG as an alternative fuel in 2004 the rich and the middle class people began to take advantage it. They converted their cars to be able to use CNG.

The use of CNG gradually spread to other types of vehicles _ buses and even trucks. It proved a boon to the bus owners who cut down their operational cost heavily by using CNG. They fixed the fare based on the price of diesel _ not on the price of CNG. The government did not intervene. So, it will not be wrong to say that only the rich or those who can afford have benefited from the low price of CNG. Looking from that angle, the latest hike is acceptable.

What is not acceptable is the way the government has handled the readjustment of transport fares following the CNG price hike. The price hike was announced on Thursday the last working day of the week.

The decision was effective immediately. CNG-run auto-rickshaws and taxi cabs did not wait for a government decision to raise and adjust their fares to the new price hike. They raised their fares by their own whims. This anarchy threw commuters to a difficult situation. They did not know what to do: whether to refuse the whimsical fare or to accept it.

If the CNG price hike was an unavoidable move, the anarchy it has created in transportation could have been avoided. Good planning is what was needed to make a good show and ease harassment of the commuters.

Even the owners and drivers of CNG autos and taxi cabs were at a loss.

The decision to raise transport fare came two days later. The government says the increased fares will apply only to CNG-run autos and taxies.

Not the CNG-run buses. The bus owners could care less about the government. They dared to raise their fares on their own. The government did not intervene to prevent the owners from unilateral hike in bus fares. It has been free-for-bus-owners. They have behaved as if they are the masters of their business. No one else _ not even a military-backed government _ has any power to tame them. This has surprised us.

Grumbling passengers have been forced to pay the fare, even though it has been raised illegally. The absence of government in the transport sector has disappointed us.