Residents in most areas of Dhaka city have complained of a decrease in gas supply for domestic use during Ramadan, reports bdnews24.com.
They said there is no gas supply from 8:00am until midnight almost every day, preventing them from cooking iftar items.
Officials of Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company, which supplies gas to CITY residents, said 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 neighbourhoods, said Director Operation of Titas Gas MH 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, told bdnews24.com that on most days her home does not have gas from 7:00am to 2:00pm.
"There was no gas on the first day of Ramadan, even during iftar time. The gas was only available after iftar," she said.
Mahmuda Khanam of Mirpur-14 said that her home has not been supplied with gas from 7:00am to 3:00pm for most of the days in the past two years, but now the supply is cut off again from 8:00pm to 11:00pm.
"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 for having cold and stale food," she said.
Tanzina Rahman Liza, a resident of Segunbagicha, said her home has no gas supply from 10:00am to 2:00pm.
Maimuna Begum of Nakhalpara and Zakaria Hossain of Golapbagh made similar complaints.
"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 the demand; this has caused problems in supplying gas 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.
Also, there is a problem with the pipeline in some places, he added.
This problem in gas supply cannot be addressed until the LNG supply begins, he said.