SOHEL PARVEZ

Last weekend began with news that did not provide comfort.

After the spike in March, power prices are expected to be hiked three further times this year.

However, it will not end there as prices will be increased in four rounds next year as the government plans to remove subsidies on the energy sector to comply with a condition for the $4.7 billion loan from the IMF.

To many, especially salaried and fixed-income individuals, this means they will have no option but to find ways to cut expenditures to bear increased electricity bills.

Incomes have not risen in line with the spiralling cost of living.

Inflation, a measure of the increase in the prices of goods and services consumed by a typical consumer, has been stubbornly high. It rose to 9.81 percent in March after slightly easing the month prior.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics has not published April’s consumer prices data yet. But it seems that whatever the inflation in April was, prices may go up in the coming quarters because of the power ministry’s plan to increase electricity tariffs.

“Higher prices of electricity may stoke inflation further. We are already squeezed by consistently high inflation. The power price increase will squeeze us further,” said Ghulam Rahman, president of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB).