Calling on businessmen to invest in various sectors including power and energy on the basis of business competition, Power and Energy Adviser Dr. Faozul Kabir Khan said that the government has opened all businesses to get work through competition. Now the days of getting business through favors and recommendations are over.
He said this at a seminar titled ‘Rapid Transition to Renewable; Role of Domestic Financial Institutions’ organized by the Economic Reports Forum (ERF), an organization of economic journalists, on Saturday (November 30).
The energy adviser said that the private sector will have to set up power plants under the Merchant Power Plant (MPPP) policy, from which the government will buy a maximum of 10 to 20 percent of the electricity.
He said that currently the government guarantees the total purchase of electricity from IPP power plants set up under the Private Power Generation Policy.
He also said that under the new policy, private producers will have to pay wheeling charges and sell electricity through the government grid system to their own buyers. During the previous Awami League regime, banks financed many projects to show the people, not on the basis of the investors' wealth.
Stating that the scarcity of land has become the main obstacle in the promotion of solar power projects, Dr. Kabir said that a huge amount of land is lying unused and vacant in various government offices. These thousands of acres of land can be used for solar power plants.
Chaired by ERF President Md. Refayet Ullah Mirdha, the seminar was also addressed by Dr. Khandaker Golam Moazzem, Research Director of the Center for Policy Dialogue, Ashanur Rahman, Business Country Manager of City Bank, and Hasan Mehedi, CEO of Clean.
Gauranga Nandi, Chairperson of the Center for Environment and Participatory Research (CEPR), presented the seminar topic, moderated by ERF General Secretary Abul Kashem.