Titas fleecing consumers millions of taka

A government probe body found that the state-owned Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company is pocketing Tk 1,900 crore annually by cheating the consumers.
"This is happening to the post paid consumers, who are paying an extra Tk 424.05 for 33 cubic meter of gas they have not been using every month. The price of one cubic meter of gas is Tk 12.85," a senior government official told the Daily Observer on Saturday.
About 29 lakh consumers, who are waiting to be brought under the pre-paid metering system, are paying the inflated monthly bills in different banks, the official said.
Learning all these issues, the energy sector regulator, Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) wrote to the Energy Division and Petrobangla asking them to enquire what action they have taken against Titas to stop them from taking extra money from the consumers.
Along with this amount, it loses Tk 200 crore per year in   the name of systems loss, sources at the Energy Division said.
Instructions have been given to submit the property statements of Titas officials and employees against the backdrop of allegations that some Titas officials and employees have amassed huge assets disproportionate to the known sources of their income, the sources said.
"Billing system in Titas is mostly dependent on fake data. The billing section is giving inflated gas bills to the consumer, a strong-influential group of consumers (getting illegal connections), some politically powerful local people and an unscrupulous section of officials and employees of Titas are involved in this heinous activities for ages. It is an open secret, but the question is who will bell the cat," another senior official of the Energy Division said.
"We have identified huge irregularities in Titas IT section. We are taking action in this regard, but we need to establish a SCADA here to monitor the whole thing," Senior Secretary Md Anisur Rahman of the Energy Division told this correspondent.
Bangladesh Textile Mills Association has brought a number of allegations of irregularities and corruption against the employees of Titas to the BERC. They alleged that many of them had spent millions of taka for getting gas connection. Even after getting a connection to receive 15 PSI (pound per square inch) pressure, many of them are having only 2.0 PSI but receiving bills for 15 PSI. Thus for a single connection, an entrepreneur is paying an additional bill worth Tk 1.5 million to Tk 2.0 million. However, if the meter readers are 'adequately' bribed, the bills could be curtailed as desired by the 'parties.'
Through this process more than 250,000 people have got connections illegally between 2014 and 2018 giving huge amount of bribe to this group.
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has investigated the activities of Titas and submitted an investigative and observational report on corruption in Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Co. Ltd. to State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid.
On the basis of the overall review, the team also submitted a 12-point recommendation for the prevention of corruption in the company, but who cares?
"We have sent letters in December of 2019, but we did not get any reply from them," a senior official of BERC said.
According to sources, the State Minister instructed that property statements of Titas officials and employees be presented as also the list of 96 employees who confessed to having indulged in corruption before the Truth Commission during one-eleven.
Nasrul Hamid sought legal action against those Titas officials and employees whose wealth are not in keeping with their income.
As per the official data received from Titas, the company has about 2.783 million consumers in its command area, 2.764 million of which are household consumers.
However, due to this groups intervention, Titas Gas authorities have failed to complete the installation of prepaid gas meters which was initiated in 2017 as it could halt pilferage and deprive the corrupt of the piece of the pie.