Gas distribution company officials are under stress as pressure from bureaucratic and political high-ups for new household connections keeps mounting since withdrawal of the embargo.
Distribution companies have just started sorting through the applications that have been piled up for the last three years when giving new connections was stopped due to gas shortage. But withdrawal of the restriction following a court order opened the floodgate of new applications. Most of the applications are backed by calls from influential, both in the bureaucracy and politics, and company officials can hardly ignore those.
“We’ve to prioritise such calls as in most cases these are not just requests. These are orders,” said a senior executive of Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Limited.
Routine work is being hampered as officials are to accommodate such requests and reset the priorities.
Calls for gas links are coming from ministers, members of parliament, mayors of pouroshobha ,defence officers, high officials in the government, relatives of companies officials.
Many of them are coming straight to Titas Gas headquarters and seeing the managing director or other high officials to make sure their requests are honoured.
A deputy secretary of the Ministry of Public Administration was one of them.
Asked why he was in so much haste since gas connections are expected to be given systematically, the official said, “I have come to request so that I am not missed out as the connection was stopped for many days”.
Acting Managing Director of Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Limited, MdNowshad Islam acknowledged that they were under pressure and embarrassed to face the situation.
“We will have to carry out our job. We will provide gas connections to those who have submitted demand letters first,” he told the Dhaka Tribune, adding the pressure is hampering their work.
“New connections will be given only where distribution lines are available.” he said.
“From June 4, giving extended connection has already begun under existing procedure. Fresh connections will be started from the last week of this month,” Nowshad said.
Officials of gas distribution companies told the Dhaka Tribune it would take more than two years to clear the backlog of applications for household connections.
The distributors cited manpower shortage, lack of capacity to handle equipment as the key reason for the delay and added that new applications would also come in during the period, adding to the existing piles of applications.
“Around 5,000 people have already submitted applications for new connections to households, adding to the backlog,” Pashchimanchal Gas Company Limited Managing Director Md Ali Hossain said last week.
“We are not paying attention to undue pressure by high-ups,” he said.
“We are facing problems but we don’t care,” Managing Director of Karnaphuli Gas Distribution Company Limited, Jameel Ahmed Aleem told the Dhaka Tribune.
He, however, said, “In some cases we have to consider but we are trying to follow the first come, first serve procedure”.
“After a long time we have started the process and for this reason we need more time to give connections. But consumers have no patience,” Managing Director of Bakhrabad Gas Distribution Company LTD, AKM ShafiqurRahman told the Dhaka Tribune.
Distribution companies have a pile of about 150,000 applications from households, industries, tea estates and CNG refuelling stations. Of those, around 120,000 are for households.