BNP on Tuesday announced a three-day demonstration program in protest against the fresh hike in gas prices.
The party also demanded the government immediately revoke its decision of raising the gas prices and take steps to lower the prices of daily essentials.
As part of the programs, BNP’s all metropolitan city units, including Dhaka one, will stage demonstrations on Thursday while all district units will also observe a similar program on Saturday.
Besides, all upazila units of the party will hold protest rallies on June 13.
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir came up with the announcement at a press conference at BNP Chairperson’s Gulshan office.
He said their party’s all associate bodies will also stage demonstrations to mount pressure on the government to withdraw the gas price hike decision and control the prices of essential commodities.
Fakhrul said prices of all essentials will now go up further as an impact of the fresh gas price hike.
He said their party standing committee at its virtual meeting on Monday voiced concern that the fresh hike in gas prices when people were going through immense suffering to cope with the rise in prices of daily essentials has hit the lives of ordinary people hard.
The BNP leader said their standing committee also worried that the rise in the prices of gas used in cooking stoves, fertilizer factories, and industrial plants, the gas supplied to power plants will have a huge negative impact on agriculture and industrial production and power supply alongside increasing the cost of living of people.
“The price of every commodity will increase further. It won’t be possible in any way for people to bear this cost. Our meeting demanded immediate cancellation of the decision to increase the prices of gas and return to the previous prices,” he said.
Amid economic hardships, Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) on Sunday announced to increase the average gas price by 22.78% for retail consumers in the country with back effect from June 1.
As per the new tariff, the household consumers using single burner will now pay Tk990 (7.03% rise), up from Tk 925 a month, while the double-burner users need to pay Tk1,080 (10.77% rise), up from Tk 975.
