As the mercury kept on declining significantly in the last three days, the pressure of gas supply in parts of Dhaka has dropped, affecting the usual supply to households.
Sources at Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Limited (TGTDCL) said the crisis was reported in parts of Mirpur, Gulshan, Dhanmondi, and Shukrabad, on Wednesday.
Titas Gas Gulshan control room confirmed that it received complaints of gas supply shortages from Gulshan and Mirpur until 8pm on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the south zone’s emergency control room at Motijheel said it received 11 reports of “gas leakage” over the same period of time.
An official at the Gulshan control room said there were reports of gas outages as well as low pressure in the pipelines.
However, Titas Director (Operation) Md Kamruzzaman Khan said there were no such issues regarding gas supply.
When the Dhaka Tribune told him about the complaints pitched at the Titas Gas Gulshan zone, Kamruzzaman said: “It was not supposed to happen since gas supply was quite satisfactory.”
The same question was asked of the TGTDCL Company Secretary, Md Munir Hossain Khan, who claimed to be unaware of the development.
Disruption or suspension of gas supply in parts of the capital city is a common phenomenon whenever the temperature drops, especially in winter.
According to AccuWeather, the temperature dropped to 18.6 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, up from around 21 degrees Celsius two days ago.
Interestingly, Kamruzzaman said there were no serious allegations in this regard during winter.
“We used to receive such complaints in numbers in the past, which was hardly reported this time around,” he said.
Titas deliberately lowers gas pressure, claims CAB
M Shamsul Alam, energy adviser to Consumers’ Association of Bangladesh (CAB), said Titas deliberately lowers gas pressure or stops supply in its own interest.
“Consumers, mainly household users, are bearing the brunt of the gas supply loss,” he said.
Domestic users are not even getting 20 out of 87.92 units of gas allotted for each connection a day, he said.
With 27,83,134 consumers, including 44 power plants, 1,630 captive power producers, and 5,128 industrial units, the TGTDCL supplies gas under eight categories in Dhaka and Mymensingh divisions.
The number of Titas’ household and commercial users are 27,64,247 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.
Dhaka sees a number of gas outages and low pressure in February
Since February 15, most areas of Dhaka suffered gas outages and low pressure for more than 36 hours, after a technical problem in Ashulia.
Two days later, the city yet again faced a similar situation for 12 hours due to the relocation of pipelines to facilitate construction of the metro rail project at Shahbagh.
In another development, a leaked underground gas pipeline exploded, damaging and setting at least two vehicles on fire, and injuring at least eight people, on Mirpur Road in Dhaka’s Asad Gate area on February 20.
Following the pipeline explosion near Asad Gate, gas supply to Shukrabad, Mohammadpur, Kalabagan, Zigatola, Kallyanpur, parts of Old Dhaka, Dhanmondi, and Mirpur areas were suspended.
