Photo: Collected
The Titas Gas Distribution Company plans to increase the gas allocation for single and double burner households, which may lead to a price hike. They argue that adjusting the gas volume necessitates a corresponding price revision. However, an alternative proposal suggests increasing the gas allocation while reducing the gas price.
Currently, non-metered residential customers are billed a fixed amount for gas consumption, regardless of whether they fully utilise it or not. Titas Gas has proposed raising the gas allocation from 55 cubic meters (Tk 990) to 76.65 cubic meters for single-burner units, and from 60 cubic meters (Tk 1080) to 88.44 cubic meters for double-burner units. This proposal asserts that a higher allocation naturally results in increased prices.
Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) last hiked gas prices on June 5, 2022. A public hearing was held in March before the order was issued. Then the statistics of customers using prepaid meters of distribution companies show that on average one stove is using 40 cubic meters and two stoves are using a maximum of 50 cubic meters. Based on prepaid customer usage figures, one stove is reduced from 73.41 cubic meters and two stoves from 77.41 cubic meters to 55 and 60 cubic meters respectively.
The Titas Gas objected to BERC's order 10 months later. And about 1 year after Titas application, the issue is being raised in the commission meeting.
Titas said in its petition that BERC has fixed the cubic meter rate without any survey or data analysis against the nearly 2.5 million non-metered customers. This has increased the technical problems and the Titas has faced financial loss. However, BERC has been denying such complaints of Titas.
The then member of the commission (2022) Maqbul E-Elahi Chowdhury told the Daily Messenger “Titas gas allegations are not true. Of the 3.5 lakh prepaid meters they had, it was seen that less than 45 cubic meters were used on an average. This can be understood by looking at the prepaid meter bill data. You don't need to know rocket science for this.”
Chairman of Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission Nurul Amin said, the activities are going on, the information of various meters has been taken. It took time to analyse that information.
Titas has been claiming that non-metered customers are burning more gas. But the data of metered customers does not say so.
However, this crisis does not exist if prepaid gas meters are installed. Initially there was a lot of confusion in installing pre-paid gas meters. Distribution companies have now taken a strategic position to delay as much as possible.
Messenger/Disha
