Seeking an immediate end to the ongoing political turmoil, CNG (compressed natural gas) filling station owners yesterday said they have to incur a loss of about Tk 10 crore per day as their sales decline.
“Our sales have declined to 20 percent… For the last one month, we had incurred a loss of about Tk300 crore,” said M Masud Khan, Convener of the Bangladesh CNG Filling Station & Conversion Workshop Owners Association, while addressing a press conference at Dhaka Reporters Unity to delineate the sufferings of the pump operators.
Among others, CNG Station Owners Association’s joint convener Alhaz Najib Ahmed and Farhan Noor Bhuiyan were present on the occasion.
Demanding interest waiver on the payment of their bank loans for January, Masud Khan said they have been unable to afford to pay their staff salaries due to the fall in their business.
“Since we’re incurring huge losses every day, how can we pay our loan interest to the banks?” he said.
The CNG refueling station owners’ leader said the country’s 590 CNG pump operators are now in a deep crisis due to political situation.
“We’ve invested about Tk3,000 crore of which Tk2,000 crore came from bank borrowing.”
He said the CNG refueling stations are annually saving about Tk12,000 crore as import substitution through supplying alternative green energy to the motor vehicles and making a big contribution to protecting environment.
Initially, the government was encouraging CNG sector, but now they seem to have taken U-turn. “If the government discourages the use of CNG in motor vehicles, it will be detrimental to the environment as well as it will invite disaster to this sector. About 2 lakh people are directly and indirectly employed in the sector,” said the CNG station leader.
The association placed a four-point demand, including interest waver, and rescheduling of bank loans, allowing bill-defaulter stations to pay arrear bills without interest, providing adequate security to the
CNG pumps, and resolving political crisis without any delay.
