No new household or commercial gas connections

Send
Shanchita Shitu
Published : 23:55, May 23, 2019 | Updated : 00:16, May 25, 2019

Industries, power and fertilizers will be given priority in terms of gas pipeline clearance while it will be halted for residential, commercial and filling station purposes. FILE PHOTOThe government will no longer give clearance for gas connections to residential or commercial areas as well as CNG filling stations.
The Energy and Mineral Resources Division on Thursday (May 23) issued a circular in this regard.
The circular said that in order to make industrial gas connection easier the committee which was headed by the prime minister’s power, energy and mineral resources affairs advisor has also been dissolved.
In order to make the industrialists used to grid power, captive power have also been discouraged.
The government circular said that industries, power and fertilizers will be given priority in terms of gas pipeline clearance while it will be halted for residential, commercial and filling station purposes.
However, hospitals, educational institutions, and prisons will be exceptions.
The gas distribution companies will provide connection as per their availability and increase the load depending on the applications but follow a specific set of rules for it.
Responding to queries on dissolving the committee, State Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said that there have been many complaints regarding it.
“I’m not saying that the committee was corrupt. But there are many who have taken advantage of the committee’s delay in providing gas line,” he told Bangla Tribune.
He said that the delay was hampering the industrial work and they were able to convince the prime minister that investment was being hampered because of the committee.
Hamid said that anyone who asks for gas connection in factories will be given clearance which will significantly bring down chances of any graft.
Sources said that in the last four years gas connection to industries were completely controlled by the committee and its delay has caused only a few factories to be set up. The applications remained pending and the investors’ capital remained blocked as a result.
An employee of state-owned Titas Gas said that this is the first time the government has given a written order in regard to halting gas supply for the aforementioned sectors.
Back in 2009, the government halted new connections to residential buildings citing gas crisis.
The government started providing these gas permits again at the end of 2013 but then verbally ordered the gas distribution companies to halt in after the 2014 election.

/st/zmi/
Top