News

On February 17, 2014, Bangladeshi state-owned Petrobangla signed two production sharing contracts (PSC) with the Indian state-owned ONGC Videsh Ltd and Oil India Ltd for hydrocarbon exploration in two offshore blocks in the Bay of Bengal. Under the contracts, the Indian companies would also have rights to explore an already discovered offshore gas field near Kutubdia beyond their allocated blocks. The contractors will be allowed to operate and sell oil and gas for 20 years from an oil field and 25 years from a gas field. Indian High Commissioner said on the occasion that both the countries can work together to ensure the energy security.

Comment

After a controversial one-party election on January 5, 2014, Sheikh Hasina now embarks on gifting as much as possible to both India and USA. In the energy sector, first round of gifts went to India as the Congress-led government in India remains her strongest supporter. Media reports suggest that like her previous 5-year rule, she is going to gift both India and the U.S. as much as possible to hold on to power as long as possible.

Government officials said that two more agreements will be signed with the U.S. based company ConocoPhillips and Santos-Criss Energy soon. Both Indian and U.S. companies are currently negotiating construction of floating LNG terminal. India is also actively exploring gas grid connectivity with Bangladesh which will connect its proposed LNG import terminal facility in Digha in West Bengal to Jessore in Bangladesh by a 200km pipeline from Haldia-Jagdihspur pipeline of GAIL India.

For the last 43 years, people of Bangladesh have witnessed successive Indian governments' words and deeds towards Bangladesh. Border Security Force of India does not miss any opportunity to kill innocent Muslims in the border. For years Indian governments supported insurgency operations in the Chittagong Hill Tracts area. It is withdrawing water from common rivers and constructing dams to withdraw more water resulting in desertification in the country and rivers becoming dry. Consequence of Ganges water treaty with India tells us the likely future of any agreement with India. In that treaty though India was supposed to give Bangladesh legitimate share of water but instead they stopped the water to the point that the Padma is now almost dry.

On the other hand, leaders in Bangladesh have done everything possible to create chaos in the energy sector, especially during the democratic regimes of Awami League and BNP in the last 25 years. These governments did little exploration of oil and gas, did not perform regular maintenance nor build power generation capacities, and did not utilize coal and uranium already discovered. Trapping the Ummah under huge shortage of gas and electricity, they have given out quick rental and rental power generation contracts at extremely high costs through corrupt practices. To recover these costs and also under IMF directions, Hasina government has increased power tariffs many times and still planning for more thereby putting huge burden on the Ummah. The situation is again used by these corrupt politicians to justify foreign looting of Ummah's resources in the name of production sharing contracts, foreign direct investments, building expensive LNG terminals etc.

Oil and gas are not private properties of Hasina or the kufr ruling regime to grant these to Ummah's enemies for their benefit. Rather these are Ummah's property as RasulAllah (saw) said, «الْمُسْلِمُونَ شُرَكَاءُ فِي ثَلَاثٍ: فِي الْمَاءِ وَالْكَلَإِ وَالنَّار»ِ "The Muslims are partners in three - water, pastures and fire." (Ahmed, ibn Majah). Islam gives comprehensive guidelines on how to use these resources for the benefit of Ummah. The Khilafah "Caliphate" state will do just that and build a strong economy.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Muhammad Raiyan Hasan
Member of Hizb ut Tahrir, Wilayah Bangladesh