A RECENT news report in The New Nation said more than 250-kilometre gas pipelines installed without permission of the concerned distribution company in the capital and adjacent districts are eating up huge quantity of gas severely affecting mainstream industrial production and household usage. It is also depriving the government of huge revenue from gas marketing. Such illegal connections stand as one of the key obstacles to maintaining normal gas supply to customers causing production setback to factories and household cooking.
The report blamed some influential quarters who operated as it appears under the shelter of the government for the installation of the pipelines. They coordinated action with corrupt Petrobangla and Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Co Ltd’s field officials to set up those gas lines. They then gave connection to users who were waiting for gas supply after making formal applications. These people made huge deposits and paid for gas line connection apparently on official money receipts but they were cheated in absence of their knowledge that they were taking connection from unauthorized lines and paying illegally that the money was not going to public exchequer.
A Petrobangla probe committee has identified all those illegal connections running over more than 250-km pipelines in Dhaka, Narayanganj, Munshiganj, Narsingdi and Gazipur districts with more than 300,000 connections to households and industries. The energy underworld is illegally consuming more than 200 million cubic feet (mmcf) of gas per day causing revenue loss to the government to the tune of Tk 134 million every day. The illegal syndicate made billions of taka, as each illegal gas connection to industry fetched them, as the probe committee said, more than Tk 2 million and each household paid Tk 35,000 to Tk 45,000 for connection.
It is unbelievable and yet it happened raising question how they collected pipelines and run the installation sneaking attention of the people watching development at the field level. The country produces around 2,482 million cubic feet of gas per day against around 3,000 million cubic feet demand, leaving a daily shortfall of around 500mmcf. So when applicants were waiting and investors were complaining shortage of pressure on gas line with production volume going down dishonest quarters were minting crores of taka daily from illegal gas supply. In some estimates nearly 35 percent of production capacity is remaining unused in factories having low gas supply while more than 1000 applications for bulk connection to new industrial units were in waiting. But leaving them in the sideline they gave them illegal connection from Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Ltd local grids when the authorities were in the dark.
It is a stunning disclosure but not anything new. Such pilferage is reported from Feni and Chittagong region and powerful quarters are minting huge fortune from illegal gas supply. People believe that there should be big crack down on illegal business, these gas connections must be stopped and perpetrators must not be allowed to go unpunished.
