Eliminate gas crisis

The country is reeling under gas crunch for the last one month. The nationwide gas shortage has caused the closure of many industries. Apart from industrial crisis, many households are also going through the problem, hampering daily cooking routine. According to news published on several outlets on Thursday, the gas crisis in the country is increasing as the supply has not been scaled up. Media reports that Bangladesh is reeling through 1350m cubic feet gas crunch per day. Industry production drops below 30 percent as gas supply shrinked further.

The situation has worsened significantly over the past few days in the industrial areas of the country including Gazipur, Narayanganj, Savar, Chattogram and Narsingdi. It has been reported in the media that the production of the factory is being disrupted due to the gas crisis. Many factories are under threat, and some are on the verge of closure. Employers are forced to lay off workers. As the production is less, the export of goods is decreasing while the import of raw materials from abroad is increasing. As a result, the foreign exchange reserves are under pressure. If the gas crisis is not resolved quickly, the stakeholders are seeing bad signs in the economy.

Sufferings have reached such a level that it is better to shut down the factories than to keep them operational. Queues of cars are getting longer at CNG stations due to gas shortage. However, gas supply is failing to meet the demand. In such circumstances, the government says that various steps have been taken to scale up the production and supply of gas to industries on a priority basis.

According to energy experts, the gas crisis will not be eliminated anytime soon. The past government was more inclined to import than to explore of gas from domestic sources. Despite its potential, gas exploration has long been largely neglected, causing reduction in gas production. On the other hand, the demand is increasing day by day. As a result, the crisis has intensified. In the meantime, import of sufficient LNG is not possible due to the rising price.

Most of the country's factories and urban households are dependent on gas. Meanwhile, the demand for gas is increasing day by day as many vehicles are now dependent on gas. Electricity is also produced from gas. A good amount of foreign currency is being spent for gas import and as a result, the country's economy is facing a serious threat.

The condition of the factories is deplorable due to the crunch in gas supply which is reducing day by day. If this situation continues, industrial production will be in deep crisis. Businessmen will suffer and thousands of workers will be unemployed if factories are closed or salaries are not paid.

Currently, the demand of gas in the country is about 4200million cubic feet per day. No plan is yet to be known on how the government will meet the demand of this huge amount of gas. Experts say, there is an opportunity to increase production from the country's three major gas fields; But instead of doing that, the tendency towards bringing in LNG is more visible. The reason behind the tendency should also be taken under consideration.

Some private institutions will be benefited from it no doubt; But the authorities should think about the extent of the damage. Although the government is already prioritizing the issue of solving the gas crisis in the industry and is taking various initiatives to increase gas supply, its reflection is not seen anywhere. Therefore, we expect that the government will reduce the suffering of the people by increasing the gas production and make arrangements to make the the industries fully operational.