The Dhaka Times Desk The High Court has revoked the court's order on April 16 to stop the new gas connection without the government's decision. Following a petition, the bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Zafar Ahmed gave this order. As a result of this order, the new gas connection was allowed after a long period of almost 3 years. But according to the statement given by Petrobangla chairman on TV channels, it is understood that even if the court ban is withdrawn, the connection is not being started if the energy adviser does not want it!
Manzil Morsed, the applicant lawyer, said that the proposal to provide new gas connection has been submitted to the ministry and news was published in several newspapers. In view of this, as a result of making this application, there was no legal obstacle to the new gas connection as per the order of the learned High Court. It is known that after the current grand coalition government came to power, on July 21, 2009, industrial and commercial and residential on July 13, 2010, closed new gas connections. Due to the fact that the gas connection was off, some dishonest officials and employees of Titus broke the government's decision in collusion and started giving gas connection illegally in exchange of money. Even though they grabbed hundreds of crores of rupees, the government got nothing. A public interest writ petition was filed on November 8, 2012, alleging that the people who had legally connected were affected by the illegal connection. The writ petition was filed by Advocate Asaduzzaman Siddiqui, Advocate Ekhlach Uddin Bhuiyan and Mahbubul Islam on behalf of Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh. Following this writ petition, the court ordered to stop providing gas connection without government decision.
According to a source related to Petrobangla, in 2010, after the government stopped new gas connections in the residential sector, 57,414 stoves were given new connections illegally. Besides, Petrobangla informed the concerned ministry that there are almost equal number of stolen connections. Recently, in the proposal of Petrobangla to open new gas connections, the proposal has been sent to the ministry with a detailed explanation including the number of these illegal connections and how much gas demand will increase.
Before this, the parliamentary committee related to the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources recommended the introduction of gas connection in the residential sector for the second time on February 27. In view of that, Petrobangla sent a proposal to the ministry on the same day. The ministry sent the proposal back to Petrobangla after asking the ministry to answer various questions including the number of illegal customers in the proposal, how much gas is required if new connections are given. Finally, after answering the question, Petrobangla again sent the proposal to the ministry on April 11.
Petrobangla said in its proposal that currently the number of valid residential gas customers under 5 distribution companies in the country is 23 lakh 5 thousand 231. The total number of illegals is about 25 lakhs. Accordingly, the daily consumption of gas in legitimate residential connections is 24.48 million cubic feet. That is, 12 percent of the total produced gas is used for residential purposes. Although currently the demand for gas in residential connection is 275 million cubic feet. On July 13, 2010, when new connections were closed in the residential sector, the number of applicants was around 148,000 and now, if the connections are opened, around one and a half lakh new applications will be read. About 3 lakh customers will have to be given new connections. For this reason, 300 million cubic feet of gas will be used daily for residential purposes only. Petrobangla argues that distribution companies have the capacity to provide 300 new connections per day. As a result, with the opening of the connection, the daily gas demand will not increase by two and a half million cubic feet. It will take about 2 years to connect all customers. In this situation, gas demand will gradually increase. As a result, there will be no problem.
Chairman of Petrobangla Professor Dr. Hossain Mansoor said that there are currently about 2 lakh illegal gas connections in the country. 18 lakhs worth of gas is being stolen daily. Currently, 70 percent of the demand is now running through illegal connections. As a result, additional 30 percent of gas will be covered by new connection. It will require 8 million gas. Moreover invalid connections cannot be identified. As a result, the government would have earned more than 500 crore rupees if all the customers could be legalized with the new connection. In response to a question, he said that efforts are underway to catch illegal connections. If caught, the owners will be brought under the law and punished.
After the court's verdict yesterday, Petrobangla Chairman told TV channel reporters, "We have sent the file to the Prime Minister's Office." But it is heard that the energy adviser will look into the matter. On the other hand, an energy advisor told a TV channel, "We are not taking any decision at the moment regarding residential gas connection.
Since the people of the country have been in trouble for a long time due to non-connection in the residential sector. So people expect the government to respect the court's verdict and take necessary measures.
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