Residents Demand Household Gas Connections from Local Surplus in Bhola

Residents of Bhola are renewing their demand for residential gas connections with urging authorities to allocate a fraction of the district's vast untapped reserves for household use.

The "House-to-House Gas Connection Implementation Committee" pressed this demand during a customer gathering at the Masuma Khanam Girls Secondary School auditorium in Bhola city on Friday morning.

According to committee leaders of Bhola’s active gas wells have a daily extraction capacity of 120 million cubic feet. While local power plants and factories consume 70 to 80 million cubic feet, a surplus of nearly 50 million cubic feet remains stored or unutilized. Speakers highlighted that allocating just one to two million cubic feet from this surplus would entirely meet the district's residential demand.

Committee President Md. Rabiul Alam and General Secretary Amirul Islam argued that providing household connections is both logical and economically viable. They noted that the government has already spent public funds to lay 104 kilometers of residential pipelines in the area, meaning no new infrastructure costs would be incurred.

Furthermore, resuming connections would generate significant government revenue. The ongoing suspension has left many locals frustrated between 2018 and 2019 and 577 customers deposited money in banks for connections under government regulations also another 5,000 residents submitted formal applications.

Local advocates argue that until Bhola's gas fields are fully integrated into the national grid with utilizing the localized surplus to supply homes is a fair and practical solution for the district's residents.