The prepaid metre project by Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Ltd is progressing at snail’s pace, and is nowhere near meeting its target.
The three-year project was launched in January 2015, aiming to install 200,000 prepaid gas meters around Dhaka city. The deadline for the project was set on December 31, 2018.
However, by December 31, only 74,284 prepaid meters were installed under the project – covering a little over one-third of the project goal.
Sources in Titas, the largest state-run gas supply company in the country, said a steering committee of the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources extended the deadline till 2020 last year, given the current status of the project.
The extension was granted after Energy Division Secretary Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem approved a revised development project proposal on June 30, Project Director Md Faizar Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune.
Hardly anything has changed in terms of progress; as of January 2019, some 85,000 prepaid meters have been installed in the city’s Gulshan, Banani, Baridhara, Bashundhara, Badda, Tejgaon, Cantonment, Kafrul, Mirpur, Khilkhet and Uttara areas, Faizar said.
Asked what caused the project dawdle so badly, Faizar claimed the delay in starting the project work was to blame.
“The main work started more than two and a half years after it was launched,” Faizar, also a deputy general manager at Titas, said.
Titas struck an agreement with UK-based consultancy firm Pegasus-Global Holdings Inc on October 7, 2015 to implement the project, according to Titas’ Annual Financial Report 2017-18, unveiled on December 20. The British firm started consultancy 12 days later.
On March 16, 2017, the gas company signed another agreement with Toyokeiki Company Ltd, an engineering, procurement and construction contractor based in Japan, to implement the project.
Toyokeiki started to install the meters on September 17, 2017, the Titas report said.
Of the installed meters, around 38,000 are operational at present, Project Director Faizar said.
“We have installed around 10,000 meters in January alone, and are planning to keep the pace for the rest of the year,” he told the Dhaka Tribune. “In March, 15,000 more meters will start operating.”
Titas conducted a site survey till December 31, surveying 94,754 of its domestic customers. According to the gas company’s estimates, the project is likely to cost Tk712.099 crore.
More than half of the cost will be funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica), who is contributing Tk453.106 crore. The rest will be funded by the government and Titas, with the government set to pay Tk236.745 crore, and Titas Tk22.248 crore, the report said.
With 2,783,134 consumers that include 44 power plants, 1,630 captive power producers and 5,128 industrial units, Titas supplies gas under eight categories in Dhaka and Mymensingh divisions.
Titas’ household and commercial users stand at 2,764,247 and 11,688, respectively.
The gas company faces a shortfall of at least 300mmcfd against its demand of around 2,200mmcfd. In the Dhaka metropolitan area alone, the demand is as high as 1,700mmcfd.
Project cost likely to fall
Titas Deputy General Manager Faizar said the project may get a waiver in taxes on the project material, which may lead to a reduction in the project cost set to be funded by the government.
“The amount that the government is supposed to pay may drop by 27%,” he added.
The funds promised by Jica and Titas, however, will remain unchanged.
CAB unhappy with slow progress
Expressing his disappointment at the slow progress of the prepaid meter project, M Shamsul Alam, energy adviser to the Consumers’ Association of Bangladesh (CAB), said Titas should not have been a part of this project.
“They [Titas] are deliberately delaying the project as they have a lot of interestsin it,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.
The CAB leader went on saying that consumers, mainly the household users, are incurring losses due to traditional billing for gas, which can be easily resolved by using prepaid gas meters.
The domestic users are not even getting 20 out of 87 units of gas allotted to each connection a day, he further said.
Titas’ prepaid meter project at a glance
* Project was launched in January 2015
* Target was installing 200,000 prepaid meters in three years
* As of December 31, 2018, only 74,284 meters have been installed
* Project deadline has been extended till 2020
* Project cost is estimated to be Tk712.099 crore
* Jica, Bangladesh government and Titas are jointly funding the project