For checking wastage, pilferage of gas, Titas will also install remote meters for 1,000 industries
Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution company is set to introduce the first batch of pre-paid gas meters at homes in Dhanmondi from May next in a bid to check gas wastage and ensure fair payment by the consumers.
The company is also set to introduce 1,000 remote meters at top industries in Tongi-Gazipur area by 2012 to stop gas pilferage through meter tampering. These 1,000 industries combined consume a significant amount of gas.
A top Titas source said the company is going to install the country’s first batch of pre-paid gas meters at 5,000 homes in Dhanmondi by next May, and by 2012 it would install 1.25 lakh prepaid gas meters in the entire Dhanmondi area.
The energy ministry in January had asked Titas to introduce pre-paid meters to ensure better use of gas.
Introducing these meters will ensure financial discipline for Titas, and discourage gas wastage as the billing would depend on the usage of gas, instead of the present fixed rate of Tk 450 a month for a double burner stove.
“Typically, a family of five that does not waste gas uses gas worth Tk 300 a month,” said the Titas official who had installed a meter at his home to see the actual usage.
He adds, introducing the pre-paid meters might reduce the earning of Titas from domestic customers. But introducing the remote meters at top industries was likely to increase Titas’ earnings.
Unlike traditional meters that are installed and monitored at the customer’s premises, the remote meter will be installed at the customer’s premises but monitored from the Titas office through computer network. This means, the customers who could tamper with the traditional meters will no longer be able to do so.
Each of these top industries consumes no less than half a million cubic feet of gas a day and some of them consume up to five million cubic feet of gas a day. Such industries produce up to 30 megawatt power for self-consumption.
This means, if one such consumer tampers with the meter, the consumer can steal gas worth crores of taka a year.
Meanwhile, from the beginning of this year Titas has encouraged many industries operating their boilers on natural gas to switch to furnace-oil-based boilers and furnaces.
But there are many very old boilers still in use which Titas had earlier advised to shut down and replace with new energy efficient boilers. Titas officials said the industries that own such boilers will be given a final notice in this regard with a deadline by which they must replace the old ones with efficient new ones.
As the country’s biggest gas distribution company, Titas has 14.58 lakh customers. Of this, 14.42 are domestic customers, 4,443 industrial customers and the remaining represent commercial, CNG stations and bulk consumers (like fertiliser and power plants).
Currently, domestic consumers use 150 million cubic feet of gas a day (the country’s total gas consumption is around 2,000 million cubic feet of gas a day). The home burners have very low energy efficiency and they waste around 65 percent of gas. In addition, many domestic users keep their burners on to save matchsticks.
