Fourteen years after the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) began preparing regulations to determine petroleum prices, petrol, diesel and octane remain outside its public hearing process, leaving the government to continue setting fuel prices through administrative decisions.
The delay stems from regulations required for BERC to exercise its legal authority under the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission Act 2003. The regulations prepared by the commission have yet to complete the approval process, preventing hearings with licenses and other stakeholders before fixing fuel prices.
A senior BERC official told TIMES that the commission first prepared separate regulations for petrol, diesel and octane in 2012 and sent them to Energy Division. The proposals were sent again in 2023 and 2024.
Following the 2024 submission, Energy Division asked BERC to prepare a combined set of regulations for all three products. BERC prepared the revised version and sent it to the division in 2025.
The regulations, however, are yet to be forwarded to the law ministry for vetting, keeping the process pending for more than a year.
The delay now stretches nearly 14 years from BERC’s first submission of the separate regulations in 2012.
BERC Chairman Jalal Ahmed told TIMES that the commission has the legal authority to determine petroleum prices but requires approved regulations to implement that authority.
“Those regulations have not yet been approved by the government. So, we cannot proceed without the approval of the regulations,” he said.
Asked about the status of the regulations, Ahmed said the Energy Division was supposed to send the combined draft to the Ministry of Law.
“Once the law ministry vets it, it will be published through a gazette,” he said.
While BERC waits for the regulatory framework, the government continues to determine petrol, diesel and octane prices through monthly gazette notifications, considering them strategic products.
A senior official of the Energy and Mineral Resources Division said fuel pricing responsibility would eventually have to go to BERC, but the commission must first improve its capacity.
Monir Hossain Chowdhury, joint secretary of the operations wing at the division and ministry spokesperson, told TIMES that BERC needed to develop the ability to monitor international market prices in real time, follow Mean of Platts (MOP) rates and scrutinise relevant documents before determining prices.
“The responsibility should go to BERC at some point in the future, but they should enhance their capacity enough before that,” he said.
The Energy Division’s position has created a debate over whether fuel pricing should remain an executive decision or move under BERC’s regulatory process.
Energy experts and consumer rights advocates argue that BERC was created to bring transparency and public scrutiny into tariff decisions.
M Shamsul Alam, energy adviser at the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), told TIMES that consumers have the right to know the basis of a price before paying for a product.
He said government control over fuel pricing limits public scrutiny of cost components.
“BERC was established precisely for this purpose, not the government. Where does the government derive this authority from? On what grounds can the ministry or the Energy Division claim that BERC lacks the capacity to handle this task?” he said.
Alam said transferring fuel pricing to BERC would require the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) to present details of import costs, system losses and profit margins during public hearings, allowing stakeholders to question the figures.
“Making such remarks amounts to a violation of the BERC Act. Violating the BERC Act is an offence punishable by imprisonment for up to three years, or a fine, or both,” he said.
The dispute over fuel pricing intensified after amendments to the BERC Act in 2023.
On 31 January 2023, the government passed the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (Amendment) Act, 2023, allowing the government, under special circumstances, to determine, revise or adjust energy tariffs through executive orders.
The amendment allowed the government to adjust prices of electricity, gas and other energy products without following BERC’s usual public hearing process.
In March 2024, the government introduced a formula-based automated pricing mechanism for petroleum products under its IMF-supported programme.
Under the system, prices of diesel, kerosene, petrol and octane were to be adjusted periodically based on international market prices and other components of the formula.
However, monthly adjustments continued through government notifications rather than BERC hearings.
After the change of government, the interim government repealed Section 34A of the BERC Act in August 2024, removing the provision that allowed the government to exercise tariff-setting powers under the amended law.
But the regulations required for BERC to determine petrol, diesel and octane prices have still not been finalised.
As a result, BERC remains caught between its statutory responsibility to determine tariffs and the absence of the regulations needed to conduct public hearings.
Fourteen years after the first regulations were drafted, fuel pricing remains under government control, with consumers still waiting for a transparent regulatory process.
