Staff Reporter :
Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Limited has increased its prepaid meter charge by Tk 40 without any notice.
It has not taken any permission from Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC), the authoritarian body of the energy sector of the country.
Different landlords of the city’s several areas said that the Titas gas company has collected charge in July at Tk 100 for every prepaid meter instead of its previous charge of Tk 60.
When contacted, one of the Titas officials said that the increasing notice has not been published in any daily news papers and did not give any message to the clients also.
“It was supposed to send text messages to the clients but, I am not sure that if the texts sent or not,” the official said on condition of anonymity as he is not right person of giving statements in these regards.
Meanwhile, Titas Managing Director Engineer Harunur Rashid Mollah told journalists that they had increased its charge for logical reasons.
“Each meter has been bought by Tk 25 thousand. The tenure of the meters is 10 years. The company had then fixed Tk 60 its charge thinking the convenience of the clients. If we collect Tk 60 continuously, it needed 30 to 35 years to realize the price of the meters,” the Titas MD said.
“If the meters get dysfunctional within 10 years, whoever will take the responsibility? We have increased the charge in this light of view,” Engineer Harunur Rashid Mollah said.
Another official of Titas gas said that the World Bank has given loan to the company for buying the prepaid meters. It needed to repay the loan soon so that more debt can be available for buying more prepaid meters for distributing to the clients.
“It is also a big reason behind the sudden increasing of the charge of those meters,” he said.
