Household gas: Gas price may rise by up to Tk 512 a month

Without conducting a proper study, Titas has said the average household gas consumption is a lot more than the estimation made by the energy regulator last year.

If Titas estimation is taken into consideration, the price of domestic gas may rise by 47 percent for dual burner stoves and 39 percent for single burner ones because the assumed consumption is a major factor in deciding the tariff.

People now pay Tk 1,080 a month for using a dual burner stove and Tk 990 for a single burner one. If the proposal is approved, Titas' 28.5 lakh subscribers may have to pay Tk 1,592 and Tk 1,380 respectively.

Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company sent a letter early this month to Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission about refixing the assumed gas consumption by households.

The letter said households with non-metered gas connections use more gas than last year's estimated 60 cubic metres by a dual burner and 55 cubic metres by a single burner stove each month.

The estimated average consumption should be 88.44 cubic metres and 76.65 cubic metres for dual and single burner stoves, reads the letter.

Titas cited a 2003 estimation based on a study Titas conducted in 2000-01 on 100 consumers in Gulshan and Banani areas.

The data on average consumption is not based on a recent study on non-metered consumers who represent 95 percent of its household users, according to energy expert Maqbul-E-Elahi Chowdhury.

The current gas tariff fixed in June last year is based on an analysis of 3.70 lakh metered connections to households, he said.

"No consumer was found to be using more than 45 cubic metres a month. How are they claiming that the average non-metered consumer is using over 70 cubic metres a month? This is absurd," said the former member of BERC.

Titas simply wants to put the burden of system loss on subscribers of non-metered connections, he said.

The Titas letter also cited consumption data from October 2022 to March 2023 of around 53,000 "post-paid metered connection subscribers".

It says the average consumption of those users was 97 cubic metres a month.

But multiple Titas officials requesting anonymity said metered postpaid connections are mostly subscribed by dormitories of educational institutes, madrasas, police barracks, and hospitals where the consumption is significantly higher.

Contacted, BERC Secretary Khalilur Rahman Khan said, "We will hold a meeting with the distributor companies [today] and ask for the rationale behind their [Titas'] claims."

Before fixing the non-metered gas price in 2022, the BERC conducted a study in collaboration with Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies.

The study found that the distribution companies have no recognised method of measuring the consumption by subscribers of non-metered gas.

As a result, the fixed tariff paid by subscribers of non-metered connections is higher than the monetary value of the gas used by them, said the study conducted on 688 non-metered and 365 metered gas connections in 13 districts.

Titas Managing Director Harunur Rashid Mollah refused to make comments on the issue.

Alamin, manager (public relations) at Titas, said the estimated average gas usage needed revision because of Titas' rising system loss. This revision is not directly linked to gas prices, he added.