The import of liquefied natural gas from the spot market has increased by some 44 per cent in the current calendar year, but the supply shortage of gas to households and industries in the capital and its adjoining districts have been persisting.
The clients of the piped gas in the metropolitan areas, especially in the Dhaka South City Corporation, has been suffering due to erratic gas supply as the state-owned distributing company, Titas Gas, has been failing to maintain an adequate pressure in its pipelines for quite a while.
With the advent of winter the woes of household consumers have worsened as many DSCC areas have not been getting gas for days and nights and depended heavily on liquefied petroleum聽 gas to maintain the kitchen work.
Mrs Parvez, a resident at Sarat Gupta Road of Narinda, said that the gas flow has become so low over the past one year that gas woven flames look like candle light from 8am.
She has, she said, developed a unique way of coping with the situation 鈥� cooking at dawn with piped gas and relying on LPG for emergency purposes during the day.
But Mrs Rafique, who lives at Gopibhagh, has no such scope to maintain cooking over the past one year.
As the gas flow in the pipeline is almost nil for days and nights her family is entirely dependent on LPG although they have to pay Tk 1,080 to the Titas Gas as the monthly gas connection fees.聽聽聽聽聽
Kazi Mohammad Saidul Hasan, general manager, Operations Division of the Titas Gas, on Thursday said that they have faced a shortfall of 150 million cubic feet gas daily over the past one month.
鈥楽o the households at the downstream have been facing shortage of the gas,鈥� he said.
Many locations in the city, known as pockets, in Gandaria, Gopibagh, Mugda, Goran, Khilgoan, Lalbagh, Islmapur, and Jurain have faced acute shortage of piped gas for negligence by the Titas Gas.
Bordeshi village under Savar upazila has been facing suspension of gas supply for the past three months because of a leakage in the gas pipeline on the Dhaka 鈥揂richa Highway.
Unlike the gas supply suspension in Bordeshi village, the pocket area problems under the Titas Gas in the capital have been attributed to negligence in terms of servicing pipelines, illegal connections, corruption, and system loss.
Saidul Hasan said that they had identified 50 pocket areas needing emergency servicing to ensure adequate gas supply.
Without disclosing the names of those areas he said that they had been asking the line ministry for around Tk 8,000 crore to undertake a project and address the pocket area problems.
There was no progress with respect to the proposed project in the past seven years, he said.
Referring to energy, power and mineral resources adviser Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan, he said that they had to give high priority to fertiliser, power plants, and private industries.聽
Meanwhile, the private industrial consumers alleged that they were getting less than adequate gas pressure.
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association president Mahmud Hasan Khan said that industries in the downstream were not getting gas at all.
He, however, said that the situation for them was better than in the past year because of more LNG import.
On November 18, the advisory council committee on government purchase approved the import of the 49th cargo of LNG from the spot market in the current calendar year to meet the growing demand of energy in the country.
The number of was 32 and 20 in 2024 and 2023 respectively.
The household consumers spend roughly 15 per cent of the gas, but constitute 99 per cent of the client base of the Titas Gas which has been in operation since 1964.
Indifferent to the household consumers, the country鈥檚 biggest gas distribution company, however, is forcing more and more consumers to buy LPG.
The LPG consumption in the country increased 10-fold reaching 1.44 million tonnes in 2024 from 0.15 million tonnes in 2015.
There are 58 licenced LPG companies in Bangladesh, but 28 are currently active.
