For the past two months, thousands of households in capital Dhaka have been held hostage by a deeply frustrating “double-billing” crisis -- forced to pay for gas they never get to burn.
Following a drastic drop in supply on July 21, reportedly attributed to a technical glitch at the Moheshkhali LNG terminal, millions of residents connected to Titas Gas lines have been unable to cook at home.
Yet, they are still forced to pay the fixed monthly bill of Tk1,080 simply to keep their connections from being disconnected.
This leaves consumers bearing a massive financial burden. They pay Titas for a service they are not receiving while simultaneously spending thousands more on market-rate LPG cylinders or facing higher electricity bills from using induction cookers.
Because postpaid residential gas billing in Bangladesh is based on a flat rate per burner, Titas charges for the mere existence of a connection, completely ignoring whether adequate gas pressure is actually available.
While Titas has been quick to issue standard public apologies for the “inconvenience,” the company has refused to consider the only rational remedy:Suspending billing for the months in which it fails to deliver gas.
It is a profound injustice that forces families to pay two or three times over, simply to cook their meals.
While mid-September brought some improvement in gas supply, the benefits largely went to industrial consumers rather than households still suffering from shortages.
As a resident of West Dhanmondi, my own kitchen has been without a gas flame since July 21. My family has had to rely entirely on rice cookers and multi-cookers.
Compounding the misery, routine electricity load-shedding has perfectly coincided with the gas shortages. Throughout my neighbourhood -- and in many others where friends and relatives live -- lunches and dinners are routinely delayed because the power goes out in the middle of cooking.
While induction cookers can generally be more cost-efficient than standalone LPG cylinders, constant load-shedding and successive electricity tariff hikes make them a stressful alternative.
In some affected areas of the city, pipelines briefly cough back to life during ungodly hours, forcing residents to choose between a good night’s sleep and cooking a meal between 2am and 4am.
In my neighbourhood, even that agonizing compromise is not an option; the supply has remained completely dead, day and night, since July 21.
As someone living in a rented apartment, I cannot even resort to “civil disobedience” by withholding payment. The landlord collects the fixed gas bill as part of the monthly rent. If landlords were to protest by refusing to pay Titas, the consequences would fall squarely on the tenants.
Ignoring the bills altogether invites aggressive disconnection drives. Titas field teams routinely disconnect physical lines over unpaid arrears, even in areas with zero gas pressure.
Resolving the resulting fines and navigating the reconnection process later is a massive bureaucratic headache that most ordinary citizens cannot afford to risk.
This leaves consumers wondering where to turn. Charging full bills for zero service raises serious questions about fundamental consumer rights and whether the Directorate of National Consumers’ Right Protection (DNCRP) could step in to spearhead a legitimate campaign on behalf of the public.
The Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) has already openly criticised Titas, calling the practice of collecting monthly bills without supplying gas “tantamount to stealing from citizens.”
It has also noted that a simple acknowledgment of the problem is hollow without financial compensation or bill waivers.
Defenders of the utility might point to its fragile balance sheet. Now operating as a public limited company (PLC), with 25% of its shares traded on the Dhaka Stock Exchange, Titas is bleeding money.
In the 2024-25 fiscal year, the company suffered a net loss of Tk772 crore, marking its third consecutive year in the red, with cumulative losses reaching Tk1,680 crore.
Furthermore, Titas’ system losses climbed to a staggering 9.47%, far exceeding the 2% ceiling allowed by the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC).
But should ordinary households be forced to cushion a utility provider from its own financial failures?
If Titas is collecting flat-rate bills for gas it never delivers, why is it losing money?
The answer lies in deep-seated internal corruption and mismanagement. Titas loses billions of cubic feet of gas every year to “system losses” -- a euphemism for widespread gas theft through illegal pipelines allegedly supplying influential entities and unauthorized commercial hubs.
Because Titas cannot account for this stolen gas, revenue squeezed from law-abiding, non-metred households is effectively swallowed up in attempts to cover the cost of the missing fuel.
While Titas’s balance sheet is deeply troubled, that does not excuse the reality on the ground. Dhaka residents are effectively subsidizing systemic corruption and leakages with their hard-earned money, even as they pay out of pocket for alternative cooking methods simply to feed their families.
Somebody, somewhere, must be held answerable.
Reaz Ahmad is Editor, Dhaka Tribune.