The vision of the independence was to build Bangladesh as a poverty-free, and developed country with the spirit of parity. To meet this aspiration of the people of his country, Bangabandhu initiated a comprehensive development programme incorporating a prudent resources mobilisation drive. But after his assassination, this visionary development programmes were abandoned.
This led to the imprudent use of the indigenous natural gas like supplying it to households and filling stations through pipeline at minimum fixed prices.
When the government led by Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, came to power, a long term integrated development program was initiated. And implementation of this programmes has created huge demand of natural gas in industrial and power sector triggering apprehensions over the depletion of natural gas reserve.
So time has come to re-think about the proper use of natural gas as there are divided opinions as to whether domestic use of natural gas should be continued instead of high value use. For greater interest, new domestic connection to households has been suspended to boost productive sector and power generation. Bangladesh is one of the exceptional countries in the world which provides pipeline natural gas connections to households for cooking purposes.
By this time, because of right cross-sectional effort for the development from the part of government, a large chunk of the population has elevated to higher income group who have the buying capacity to meet their need and comfort.
For the people who are looking for clean and comfortable fuel for cooking, best options are natural gas and LPG.As natural gas is seriously being discouraged for cooking and transport sector, use of LPG is becoming popular globally.
In the filling stations of the developing countries, LPG is known as auto gas.
In case of Bangladesh, replacing natural gas with LPG is a challenging task but it is being done gradually. Apart from the urban there is huge untapped market for LPG in villages where pipe-line gas is absent, and the market is growing day by day.
Initially in our country, LPG was produced from the by-products of Eastern Refinery and gas fields. LPG consists of propane and butane which have higher calorific value than natural Gas.
The Government has taken several initiatives to inspire people to use LPG as an alternative to natural gas for household and transport sector. LPG is considered as the most efficient energy source as an alternative. At present, LPG is replacing conventional diesel and octane as improved combustion and clean burning.
LPG has a wide variety of uses. Other than households, it is used by cylinders as an efficient fuel in various sectors like agricultural, hospital, construction, sailing and fishing. LPG containers have been made available in Bangladesh for sale since 1980s by state-owned BPC (Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation).
Auto gas is also popular as 'green' automotive fuel around the world. Not only it is good for engine but also for environment as it is free of lead and contains very low sulfur and other heavy metals. It can potentially save costs compared to other fossil fuels.
The state-owned LPG producers supply 20 per cent of the market and private players are still tapping the remaining 80 per cent. The private entrepreneurs are in the process of constructing 23 LPG terminals and, 43 bottling plants. 200 LPG auto gas stations will be set up by them in future.
We need to look for an alternative supply to energy and LPG is considered as the most preferred one.
The government is encouraging LPG by introducing efficient and business-friendly regulations. By popularising the use of LPG, the government is trying to discourage gas supply to households through pipeline connections.
Private enterprises have good business opportunity to setup more LPG plants to involve meeting the demand of LPG which can benefit them immensely.
The writer is a Member of the Parliament and Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources. He can be reached at -
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