Humayun Kabir, a resident of West Razabazar in Dhaka, is eating out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as his home has been without gas for two days.
He complained instantly as he failed to find the usual crispiness in the naan ruti he ordered at a local restaurant.
“Finish your breakfast with that,” retorted a staffer. “Look at our stove. There’s no gas. The fire is burning lightly. We can’t serve better naan ruti with this.”
At Palash Bakery and Restaurant in the same area, Manager Shamim Ahmed lamented that they had to switch to gas cylinders over the past two days because of the shortage through the pipeline.
The pervasive gas crisis has disrupted everyday life in Dhaka and other parts of Bangladesh, with residents and businesses struggling to cope.
The crisis began when Cyclone Remal damaged one of the LNG terminals in the Bay of Bengal on May 26.
The situation worsened when a 42-inch diameter gas pipeline was punctured in Anwara, Chattogram, on Tuesday.
Residents are facing immense difficulties because of the disruptions in supply.
Sanjida Sumi from Baishakhi Sarani in Middle Badda said, “We’ve had no gas for three days. We’re buying food from restaurants and bringing cooked meals from relatives’ houses for the children and my mother-in-law.”
The gas crisis extends beyond households and restaurants.
Factories, power plants, and CNG filling stations are also severely affected.
Only 2,253 million cubic feet of gas was supplied on Thursday against a demand of 3,500 million cubic feet, according to the national gas company Petrobangla.
Officials of Gas Transmission Company Limited, or GTCL, said the damaged pipeline was repaired on Friday morning, but it will take another 24 hours for the gas supply to normalise.
The Energy and Mineral Resources Division said the damaged LNG terminal would resume supply in five days.
Energy Secretary Nurul Alam said, “The pipeline repair is complete, and the FSRU damaged by the cyclone is back and being prepared for operation. Now, plug-in work is ongoing”
“We expect an LNG cargo to arrive on the 15th of July, and gas supply should resume from the FSRU within five days.”
Despite heavy rain on Friday, long queues persisted at CNG filling stations in various areas of Dhaka.
This has been the norm for the past few weeks.
Autorickshaw driver Billal, who gave a single name, said: “I managed to get Tk 180 worth of gas after two attempts in Kallyanpur yesterday [Thursday], but I had to wait in line for three hours.”
“I earned TK 1,000 today, but it didn’t even cover the deposit. Considering the Tk 1,100 payable to the owner, the additional cost went from my pocket. The situation is really bad.”
Driver Jony, who also gave a single name, said he waited an hour and a half in Nilkhet to get Tk 80 worth of gas, then another Tk 120 from a different station.
When he went to a filling station in Mirpur, a power outage delayed his gas refill for about half an hour. “This daily struggle for gas persists,” said Jony.
The gas shortage has also hit industrial production hard.
Mohammad Ali Khokon, president of the Bangladesh Textile Mills Association, or BTMA, said factory output has halved due to the crisis.
Gas-based power plants have been allocated nearly 1,000 million cubic feet of gas daily but have received only 700 to 750 million cubic feet for the past month.
This has significantly reduced electricity production.
According to the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh, gas-based power plants are generating between 4,000 to 4,300 MW, with overall average production limited to between 11,000 and 12,500 MW.
With the demand rising to 14,000 MW during the hot weather, there is a shortage of around 2,000 MW, leading to increased load-shedding across both rural and urban areas.
Zakir Hossain from Jantabazar in Noakhali said,” Despite a slight reduction in load shedding during rainfall, power cuts are still frequent.”
“We suffer power cuts out four to five times a day, and the supply doesn’t resume for one to one and a half hours each time.”
