Legalise gas link by June 20: Petrobangla

Petrobangla has set June 20 as the deadline for those with some 150,000 illegal household gas connections to regularise them.

"Or those using these illegal gas connections will face penal action, arrest and fines," Petrobangla Chairman Hossain Monsur told a press conference on Tuesday.

Monsur has recently alleged that the government lost revenue to the tune of atleast TK 1.8 million ($ 30,000) everyday due to the illegal gas conections across the country.

A Petrobangla survey recently on the illegal gas connections found around 9 million cubic feet a day (mmcfd) was pilfered by these illegal household connections.

Petrobangla identified nearly 1,18,000 domestic connections that had been given out in the Titas gas distribution and transmission area in violation of the decision of the authority in the last two-and-a-half years.

The Titas authorities collected Tk. 2.0 billion as bills from 57,414 illegal connections, Petrobangla has alleged.

It was also found that about 60,000 consumers did not pay any money for their consumption of gas.

Petrobangla estimates that around 31.47 mmcf gas is needed to meet the demand of residential consumers , of which nearly one-third is consumed illegally.

This blatant pilferage did not invite any penal action so far and no staff of the gas marketing and distribution companies were pulled up for the obvious illegal actions.

Only Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh, a law firm, filed a writ petition in November 2012 in the High Court (HC), seeking an embargo on such illegal connections.