The longstanding demand of the Rajshahi city dwellers has at last come to be materialised as Petrobangla chairman Hossain Monsur on Friday inaugurated household gas supply.
Hossain Monsur inaugurated the supply at the house of language
hero Abul Hossain at Mathpukur in the city.Lawmaker Fazle Hossain Badsha and Shahriar Alom and managing director of Paschimanchal Gas Company Limited Ali Hossain were present among others.
Hossain Monsur said at present Bangladesh produces 760 billion cubic-feet gas and of it 720bcf is being supplied through pipelines. An extra 60cf gas would be added to the national greed, he added.
Abul Hossain said, ‘I am happy to get gas connection as the maiden customer. I am also requesting the authorities concerned to supply gas to all houses of the city as soon as possible.
According to sources, the project of supplying gas to Rajshahi was approved at the meeting of ECNEC July 12, 2006 and the then prime minister, Khaleda Zia, inaugurated the project on September 13 the same year.
On September 14, 2006, a contract was signed between the government and the Pashicmachal Gas Company Limited to finish the project by July 2009 at a cost of Tk 105 crore.
Accordingly, Messrs National Telecom Limited set up 280 kilometres of gas pipeline in Rajshahi.
PGCL informed that gas would be supplied to 4,000 residents in Rajshahi for household purposes in the first year and the number of consumers will be increased gradually.
Though the works of setting up of pipeline in Rajshahi for supplying gas was finished 2010, energy secretary Mohammad Mesbah Uddin on April 5, 2011 said at a press conference in Dhaka that the government decided not to give new gas connection in Rajshahi for household use.
The press conference further disclosed that at the end of 2012, the demand for gas would be increased to 3,382 million cubic feet whereas the present production of gas was 2,800 million cubic feet.
As a result, the crisis of gas will continue throughout the year and no new connection for gas for household use will be given.
However, the prime minister, Shiekh Hasina, during her visit to Rajshahi on November 25, 2011 year declared in a public meeting that gas would be supplied to Rajshahi from January 2012.
-With New Age input
