Guarding against gas theft

The continued public grievances over inadequate Titas Gas supplies to consumers notwithstanding, the extent of pilferage of the fuel by a section of influential people seems appalling. Lately, it has assumed the proportions of veritable robbery. The menace of illegal gas distribution network has for some time been seen in a number of districts. They include Dhaka, Narayanganj, Munshiganj, Narsingdi and Gazipur.
In February this year, the incidents of stealing gas by illegally connecting households with the main pipeline came to light prominently. Those occurred in Gazipur and Savar areas, not far from Dhaka. The media reports said the Titas officials, with the help of law enforcers, had disconnected 309 illegal gas lines at households and a restaurant in Kaliyakoir in Gazipur and in Ashulia under Savar. Emotion ran high in the localities as the 'affected' people turned furious. They complained that local youths had arranged the gas for them in exchange for money. They were compelled to take the connections as the authorities concerned had kept them out of the legal gas supply network.
The officials concerned at Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Limited have detected similar pilferage rackets in other places as well. The overall situation is grave and quite volatile as the thefts have been found to be chipping away at the state coffers in full ferocity. Like in many cases involving state-run utility services, the gas theft episodes have detected links of local political heavyweights and, in some cases, that of a section of the Titas officials and field-level staff. In cahoots with each other, the rackets have robbed the state of a staggering amount of money in recent times.
Along a stretch of around 250-kilometre pipeline, nearly 0.3 million illegal gas connections have been unearthed recently. It means massive volumes of the fast-depleting fuel are being pilfered, depriving industries and household units of it. That the stealing is directly contributing to the continued disruptions in gas supply to legal customers is axiomatic, but it has turned out to be a grim reality. As a domino effect, the thefts have a direct impact on the country's gas-run industrial sector. The thefts are badly affecting the legal domestic customers.
To add to the people's anger and woes, hundreds of industries in the country had to face production disruption and the new ones could not start production over the last four years due to gas deadlock. Owing to low pressure, the running industries could not achieve their expected production target, while the newly set up ones remained without gas supply thanks to a moratorium on fresh connections. The gas stealing syndicates perhaps could not have a better opportunity to make a quick buck. The rackets have allegedly been hyperactive in recent years selling illegally more than 200 million mmcf (million cubic feet) of gas per day. As has been learnt, the racketeers arrange illegal gas connection to an industry in exchange for more than Taka 20 million. They take Taka 35,000 to Tk 45,000 for connecting a household.
The irony is the Titas Gas authorities have owned up to the reckless thefts in the country; and in the enactment of an oft-repeated ritual, they have once again pledged to take stern action against the persons involved in the misdeed. The nation waits for them to swing into action. In the 1970s, high-ups used to boast the country's seemingly endless reserves of natural gas. Back then few could have remotely thought of the crunch the largest ever gas field, Titas, was heading to. The gas crisis has of late been making serious dents in the country's economy. As a corollary, the power generation sector, too, is bearing the brunt. The Titas Gas authorities are well aware of the extent of the snowballing crisis. According to them, in the last four years more than 1,000 applications seeking gas connections have reached them. Those still remain pending. Almost all the applications came from aspiring industries. There is no other way but count days, as new gas connections have been kept in suspension since 2009 in the country's major industrial belts.
The energy and power sectors have long fallen prey to the so-called system losses which are nothing but outright thefts committed by elements of organised rackets. Given the bleak prospects of finding fresh sources of gas soon, the sectors can ill afford to give in to the greed of unscrupulous people.
shihabskr@ymail.com