Contractors pamper on illegal gas connections, customers pay price

Company contractors get pampered on illegal gas connections while valid customers pay the price through hiked bills, which transpires in Titas Gas authorities' revelation made Monday.
The state-run company's management squarely blamed the contractors as the main culprit in illegal gas connections in its franchise areas while claiming its employees having 'little' involvement in the fuel underworld.
"We annul the licences of the contractors and blacklist those who are found involved in the misdeeds. Different punitive measures, including termination, are taken against the employees who are found involved," managing director of Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Ltd (TGTDCL) Md Haronur Rashid Mullah said in a press briefing at his office.
He said the TGTDCL authorities cannot mete out pecuniary penalty to the 'corrupt' contractors who get work orders from Titas, due to limitations in the existing regulations.
Mr Mullah, however, feels that there should be a provision to penalize the wrongdoing contractors financially, too.
The TGTDCL took punitive measures against 228 Titas employees and cancelled licences of around 55-60 contractors for their involvement in patronizing illegal gas connections, he said.
The gas company has around 2.8 million consumers in its franchise areas covering Dhaka and adjoining districts like Narayanganj, Mymensingh, Manikganj, Tangail, and Cumilla.
He said some 603,975 household gas connections had been snapped over the past two years since October 2021, of which 520,402 were illegal gas connections and 82,482 were for overdue gas bills.
Around 668.50-kilometre illegal gas pipe networks were also disrupted and stored with the TGTDCL warehouses during drives against illegal gas connections.
A total of 1,091 industrial connections were also snapped during the drives over the past two years.
The TGTDCL snapped a total of 400 industrial connections, 172 captive-power- plant connections, 466 commercial connections and 53 connections of CNG filling stations over illegal usage and overdue gas bills, he said.
It has conducted a total of 28,398 operations at a cost of Tk 64.60 million against illegal gas connections and bill defaulters.
The company has charged Tk 3.13 billion as extra bills and Tk 912.50 million as fines, of which Tk 1.48 billion was realised as extra bills and Tk 374.10 million as fines, he noted.
Titas, which supplies gas to around 55 per cent of the country's total consumers, has unpaid gas bills worth Tk 67.01 billion pending with different public and private entities.
Of the unpaid gas bills, Tk 16.57 billion, which is equivalent to 4.88 months' bills, is pending with public entities and Tk 50.44 billion with private entities.
"Our major unpaid bills in public sector lied with state-run power plants. But we cannot take action against them considering its sensitivity," Mr Mollah said.
Responding to a query over gas crisis in different areas in the city the TGTDCL top brass said the present crisis is owing to short supply of gas against demand.
"We are getting around 1,700 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of gas against our demand for around 2,200 mmcfd," he said to justify the fuel crunch despite expensive imports of liquefied natural gas or LNG to feed the national grid.
Residents of different city areas including Mirpur, Gabtoli and Savar alleges that their piped gas had been absent since Sunday afternoon.
Pointing to hurdles in snapping illegal gas connections, Mr Mullah alleged that occasionally they had to face obstacles from local hoodlums having support from local lawmakers.
"The lawmakers, however, extend support to Titas whenever we seek," he added.
Asked about its move to replace the existing old pipelines with new ones, he said the TGTDCL has been searching out financiers to implement its Tk 120-billion project to stop gas leakages.
He said Titas has made a move to introduce a uniform metering system to facilitate consumers to buy and install gas meter from open market, which he said is now pending with Petrobangla for approval.
TGTDCL general managers Md. Emam Uddin Sheikh and Arpana Islam were among the senior officials who also attended the press conference.

Azizjst@yahoo.com