Nasrul: Uninterrupted affordable energy main challenge in future

State Minister for Power, energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid has said that providing uninterrupted electricity and gas at affordable and sustainable price is future challenge for the country.

“We’ve already achieved the goal in power generation. Now our goal is uninterrupted power and energy supply at affordable and sustainable price,” he told a webinar on “Bangabandhu's Energy Strategies & Our Energy Security”, organised by Energy and Power magazine on Sunday.

The virtual seminar was also addressed by eminent economist Dr Ahsan H Mansur, Member of Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) Syed Mokbul Elahi, Prof Nurul Islam, expatriate Bangladeshi Dr Firoz Alam, and Power Cell Director General Mohammad Hossain. Mollah Amzad Hossain, editor of the magazine, conducted the function. Khondaker Abdus Saleque made keynote presentation on the issue.

Lauding the role of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in ensuring energy security by purchasing four gas fields from a foreign company in 1975, Nasrul Hamid said the Awami League government is following the same path by putting special emphasis on achieving sufficiency in power and energy supply.

“Power and energy sector played the key role in achieving economic growth of over 7%,” said the state minister adding that global energy scenario and technology has been changing so fast.

“That’s why we need to adopt short and medium-term strategy to cope with the global trend in energy sector,” he said.

Nasrul Hamid said the government is now working on setting a right strategy for ensuring an affordable energy price keeping in mind the future demand.

“We will need to import more gas in future to meet the demand as the domestic gas exploration and production is a time consuming matter, he said adding the economy will suffer a lot if gas is not imported as more manufacturing industries are coming in production.”

Dr Ahsan H Mansur said people do not expect cheaper power and energy. “But they expect uninterrupted power and energy at an affordable price.”

Urging the government for giving more emphasis on energy efficiency and choosing right technology for energy sector, he said efficiency will play the key role in fixing energy price in future.

Dr Firoz Alam said the government should pay attention on creating skilled manpower for efficient energy sector.

In this regard, he suggested collaboration between the Bangladeshi institutions with foreign universities and institutions.

Expatriate Bangladeshis can play role in this regard as well, he added.