In May, Maruf Ahmed’s electricity bill stood at Tk3,000. Just a month later, the Adabar resident was left staring at a bill for Tk8,500, nearly triple his usual charge.
Despite visiting the local electricity office repeatedly, officials merely showed him a photograph of his meter reading, assuring him the bill was accurate.
Maruf remains entirely unconvinced. “I simply cannot understand how this happened, nor do I see any prospect of a resolution,” he told TIMES of Bangladesh. “I’ve been coming here for days.”
Maruf is far from alone.
Across the country, the July electricity bills, reflecting June’s consumption, have triggered widespread outrage.
Consumers report charges soaring between three and seven times higher than normal. While the government has promised to investigate anomalous bills, disgruntled citizens say there is no transparency regarding these inquiries.
Already squeezed by rising inflation, many are left making futile trips to distribution offices, returning home frustrated and empty-handed.
In Dhanmondi, Md Rafiq typically pays between Tk1,500 and Tk2,000 a month. His June bill jumped to Tk4,000.
After spending days at the Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC) office, his frustration is boiling over. “I’m just being passed from one desk to another,” he said. “I don’t even know who to lodge a meaningful complaint with.”
Other consumers report similar discrepancies, pointing to charges that bear no relation to actual usage, alongside unexplained deductions on prepaid meters.
A resident of Nabinagar, whose bill usually averages Tk10,000 to Tk12,000, received a staggering Tk42,000 bill.
Two months of visits to the power office have yielded no answers, and attempts to reach senior DPDC officials by phone proved unsuccessful.
At DPDC’s Dhanmondi office, staff were seen comparing current bills against the same period last year, attributing the spikes to summer heatwaves and recent tariff hikes. Although minor billing adjustments are being made where errors are verified, such corrections remain exceptionally rare.
Furthermore, the official explanation wears thin under scrutiny.
While electricity tariffs rose by an average of 17 per cent in June, it fails to explain how bills have doubled, tripled, or as in Nabinagar quadrupled.
Officials maintain that genuine meter-reading and technical errors are being addressed, but for the vast majority of consumers, satisfying answers remain out of reach.
Hotline for complaints, but what happens next?
As outrage over exorbitant electricity bills mounted, the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources instructed distribution agencies on 29 June to closely monitor the issue and take decisive action.
At a review meeting on 2 July, officials were directed to promptly correct errors and pursue disciplinary action if any irregularities were proven.
PDB Chairman Rezaul Karim said that no central investigation committee had been established; instead, complaints were being examined independently by the respective distribution agencies. Consumers under all six distribution companies can also lodge complaints via the 16999 hotline.
Despite these directives, grievances persisted.
However, no official figures have yet been released detailing how many complaints were received across June and July, how many bills were rectified, or the total financial burden placed on consumers.
On 3 August, the Power Division issued a clarification accusing unnamed individuals of spreading “misinformation.”
It claimed all complaints received had already been resolved, adding that anyone with remaining issues could submit evidence for further review. The ministry urged the public to “act more responsibly.”
The power minister went a step further, effectively dismissing public anger. “When we ask them to bring us the bills, nobody does,” he told reporters.
Recounting an investigation into a journalist’s social media complaint about a doubled bill, the minister noted, “My team checked. He runs two air conditioners, a refrigerator, and a blender. If Tk 7,000 is considered high for all that, I don’t think you could run those appliances anywhere else in the world for that price.”
However, energy experts remain sceptical. Ijaz Hossain, a former professor at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, questioned whether tariff hikes alone could justify such dramatic surges.
“If consumers are certain their usage patterns haven’t changed, their bills should rise by no more than 25 per cent, one-fourth at most,” he told TIMES.
“Anything beyond that is abnormal, and it is in the interest of both the government and the utilities to investigate these discrepancies.”
