Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission would soon ask the country’s 4,200 petrol pumps to apply to it seeking licences for running their businesses, officials said on Monday.

They said that the BERC would issue a public notification in this regard in a day or two.

BERC chairman Syed Yusuf Hossain on Monday approved the draft of the public notification, said an official.

The draft notification sates that each existing petrol ump would have to pay Tk 50,000 for getting the licence.

The licence would require renewal each year against payment of the fee of Tk 50,000.

The pump owners said that they would go for strike against the ‘irrational decision.’ Compressed natural gas filling station owners expressed solidarity with the petrol pump owners saying that the BERC had issued licences to 100 CNGC filling stations out of 582.

The owners of the petrol pumps and the CNG filling stations said that the BERC was trying to squeeze them when their business was down in the name of regulation.   

Officials said that the BERC Act 2003 had set the fee at 1,00,000 for getting the licence and also for the annual renewal.

They said that the fees had been brought down to make them tolerable.

Officials said that the petrol pump owners would be given one month, since the issuance of the notification, for applying for the licences.

They said that the pump owners would also have to submit to the BERC no objection certificates from the Department of Explosives and the other agencies.

BERC member Salim Mahmud told New Age that the commission would issue the licences as soon as the pump owners applied to it.

He said that around 4,200 petrol pumps were operating without obtaining the licences from the BERC.

He said that sections 3, 27, 28 and 29 of the BERC Act made it mandatory for the pump owners to obtain the licences from BERC.

Selim said that BERC had been given the authority to issue the licences to bring the country’s petroleum distribution system under regulatory discipline.

Bangladesh Petrol Pump Owners Association’s president Najmul Huq, however, questioned the BERC’s authority in issuing the licences to the existing petrol pumps to regulate them.

He said that the petrol pumps had been running their business under Bangladesh Petroleum Act, 1934, as amended in 2010 and Bangladesh Petroleum Rules, 1937.

He said that the government neither took Bangladesh Petroleum Act 1934, as amended in 2010 nor the Bangladesh Petroleum Rules 1937into the consideration while making the BERC Act 2003.

BERC was established under BERC Act 2003 to regulate energy supply, storage, transmission, distribution and marketing in accordance with Bangladesh Petroleum Act 1974, he said.

He said that the association would go for a strike if the BERC forces the pumps to obtain the licences.

Officials said that BERC was the lone authority for issuing the licences to the filling stations supplying, transporting, storing, distributing and marketing petroleum products.