Residents in most areas of Dhaka city have complained of a decrease in the gas supply for domestic use at home during Ramadan.
Residents from various neighbourhoods said there is no gas supply from 8:00am until midnight, preventing them from cooking ‘iftaar’, the evening meal Muslims have to break their fast during the Islamic holy month.
Officials of Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company, which supplies gas to Dhaka residents, say there is no indication that the issue would be resolved soon.
The problem had begun before Ramadan, as the gas supply was not able to meet the demand in some Dhaka neighbourhoods, said Director Operation of Titas Gas M H Ashraf Ali. He said the issue can be addressed only when the supply of Liquid Natural Gas or LNG begins.
Residents of Mirpur-13 and Mirpur-14, Shyamoli, Segunbagicha, Tikatuli, Gopibagh, and Dhalpur in Old Dhaka have reported severe problems with the gas supply.
Rabeya Yasmin Kabita, a resident of Road 9 in Mirpur-13 said that on most days her home does not have gas from 7:00 am to 2:00 pm.
“But there was no gas on the first day of Ramadan, even during iftaar time. The gas was only available after iftaar,” she said.
Mahmuda Khanam from Mirpur-14 said that her home has not been supplied with gas from 7:00 am to 3:00 pm for most of the past two years, but now the supply cuts off again from 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm.
“Now my job is to monitor when we have gas supply and quickly cook our meals when it is available. But we cannot re-heat the food because there is no gas. We suffer from stomach problems from having cold and stale food,” she said.
Segunbagicha resident Tanzina Rahman Liza also said her home has no gas supply from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. “But on the first day of Ramadan the gas supply was cut off from 10.00 am, which has never happened before,” she added.
Maimuna Begum of Nakhalpara, Zakaria Hossain of Golapbagh reiterated the same complaint.
“We thought the LNG supply would be connected to the national grid before Ramadan but it was delayed,” said Titas Gas Director Ashraf Ali.
“We are facing a deficit of 300 MMCFD (million cubic feet per day) gas on a regular basis as the supply is not sufficient to meet demand; this has caused difficulties in supplying to some pocket areas in Dhaka over the last two years,” he explained.
“Power plants also become active during Ramadan, which adds to our problems,” he added.
Apart from the supply, there is problem with the pipeline in some of the places which also exacerbates the problem, he added, bdnews24 reported.
He said this problem in gas supply cannot be addressed until the LNG supply begins.