Port city reels from amplified gas shortage

Residents in Chittagong city have been suffering from the gas crisis round the year with regular interval after every two to three months for the last four years. Households have been hit hard and people in most affected areas have been relying on store-bought food, restaurants and alternative methods of cooking.

Many areas received no gas since Friday last, and other areas are getting gas at a very low pressure, said residents.

Rahattar Pool area, West Bakalia DC Road, KB Aman Ali Road, Dewan Bazar, Jamal Khan, Dewanji Pukur Par, Sub Area, Ghat Forhadbegh, Chawk Bazar, Anderkilla, Kapasgola, Badurtola, Bahaddarhat, Shulak Bahar, Ashkar Dighir Par, Sholashahar and Rahamatganj are some of the areas hit hard.

 Swapna Chowdhury, a resident in Rahattar Pool area, said "We had to suffer for around 10 days in November, for around seven days in September and for around eight days in June last year. Now we are facing this problem again since Friday."

 "We bought food from restaurants on Friday and Saturday and now we are cooking in stove", she said, adding that children are the worst victim of this crisis as they cannot take food timely.

"For the last four days, gas comes around 11.00pm at night and it takes 1.00am to finish cooking dinner," said Nezam Uddin, a resident at Dewan Bazar area,

"Life becomes horrible now with such shortages in gas supply", he added. 

This time the crisis ensued as Karnaphuli Gas Distribution Company Limited (KGDCL), which receives gas from the national grid and supplies those to Chittagong region, started receiving gas around 40 million metric standard cubic feet per day (MMCFD) less than the volume it usually receives from the grid, said KGDCL sources.

According to KGDCEL officials, the demand for gas in Chittagong is over 400MMCFD while it usually receives 280 to 290MMCFD from the national grid.  The supply of gas to KGDCL from the grid decreased to around 240MMCFD in the last few days, causing the present crisis.

Contacted, Anupam Dutta, manager (load monitoring) of KGDCL, said they were receiving around 40MMCFD gas less than the volume they usually receive from national grid and for this reason, they were unable to provide gas as per demand.

The crisis was worsened with Meghnaghat Power Station, which was previously inoperative, sharing the lines transmitting gas from the upstream grid to downstream ones, Anupam added.

The KGDCL officials said they were discussing with Petro Bangla and expected for an improvement in the current situations within two or so days.

The crisis could be mitigated in the long term with the introduction of a LNG (Liquidities National Gas) power plant to be established in Matarbari of in the district's Moheshkhali upazila in 2017, he hoped.