A six-storey building in Dhaka’s Eskaton offers a glimpse into a much wider problem facing Bangladesh’s gas distribution network.
When the building had only two floors, it had six legal gas connections. It was later demolished and rebuilt with 15 flats.
Today, all 15 flats use pipeline gas for cooking. Bills are paid for the six legal connections, but there are no official bills for the remaining nine. Instead, residents say someone comes every month to collect money for those connections.
The arrangement has continued for more than a decade without any drive to remove the illegal connections.
It is one example of a problem that has persisted as Bangladesh struggles with an acute gas shortage affecting households, industries, power generation and fertiliser production.
At the same time, billions of taka worth of gas supplied by state-owned Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution is being recorded in its accounts as “system loss”.
Nearly one-tenth of all gas supplied by Titas was recorded as system loss in the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Some gas is inevitably lost because of ageing infrastructure, leaks and other technical problems.
But repeated enforcement drives have also uncovered tens of thousands of illegal connections, raising questions over how much of the loss is actually gas theft.
On 13 April, a drive at Shahjalal Housing in Mohammadpur’s Bosila area disconnected illegal lines supplying around 106 double-burner stoves and 18 other burners.
The same day, another operation at Chandni Housing in Fatullah, Narayanganj, cut illegal connections supplying one commercial establishment and around 200 double-burner stoves in 60 homes.
In Ashulia and Gorat in Savar fiveon 3 December 2025, authorities dismantled three kilometres of illegal gas pipelines and disconnected around 700 illegal residential burners.
A further 600 metres of illegal pipeline were also removed.
The gas consumed through those connections alone was estimated to be worth Tk17,98,236 a month.
The broader figures show how rapidly Titas’s system losses have increased.
According to its 2024-25 report, the company lost 144 crore cubic metres of gas through the system, valued at around Tk3,354 crore.
In 2020-21, the financial loss was Tk345 crore.
Government figures put daily gas demand at 3,800 million cubic metres, against supply of around 2,600 million cubic metres.
Despite the substantial shortage, system losses have continued to rise.
In 2020-21 and 2021-22, Titas’s system losses remained within the 2 per cent ceiling approved by the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission, or BERC.
But over the following three years, the rate rose successively to 5.28 per cent, 7.67 per cent and 9.47 per cent.
The company’s report for the 2025-26 fiscal year has yet to be prepared.
Over roughly the same period, the financial value of the losses increased about fivefold.
Titas has disconnected hundreds of thousands of illegal gas connections in recent years.
But the number removed annually has been declining.
In 2024-25, the company disconnected more than 116,000 illegal residential connections and 576 commercial and industrial connections, according to its report.
A year earlier, around 250,000 illegal connections were cut and about 420 kilometres of illegal pipelines removed.
In the previous year, 327,000 connections were disconnected and 390 kilometres of illegal pipelines dismantled.
But enforcement does not always provide a lasting solution.
There are repeated allegations that illegal lines are reconnected after officials leave an area.
In Savar, for example, subsequent drives have again uncovered illegal connections in areas where they had previously been removed.
The continued rise in system losses despite the disconnection of hundreds of thousands of illegal connections has raised questions over the effectiveness of the enforcement drives.
Illegal residential connections are found to varying degrees across districts served by Titas.
Illegal commercial connections are particularly prevalent in industrial areas, with repeated drives uncovering large numbers in Narayanganj, Gazipur, Savar and Munshiganj.
Experts have long argued that theft on such a scale would be difficult without the involvement or cooperation of people connected to Titas, including contractors or employees.
But there has been little evidence of sustained action against those alleged to be facilitating the practice.
Geologist Badrul Imam said Titas itself was best placed to explain why its system losses had remained so high and continued to rise.
“Titas itself would actually be in the best position to explain why this additional system loss has continued for years and why it keeps increasing,” he told TIMES.
“But based on our observations from outside, we would say there may somehow be a possibility of gas theft here. Titas should explain this to us.”
Titas officials generally avoid commenting publicly on the issue.
When they do respond, they tend to point to the condition of the company’s distribution network. Parts of the system are between 50 and 60 years old.
Officials have cited corrosion and leaks, pipelines sinking deeper underground over time and damage caused during development work by other agencies as reasons for gas losses.
But the company has not publicly explained why system losses have risen so sharply in just five years.
Titas Managing Director Shahnewaz Parvez did not respond to repeated phone calls from TIMES.
Energy expert M Tamim said technical problems alone could not account for losses on the current scale.
“Technical losses can never be more than two to three per cent. The rest is mainly theft, and that cannot be stopped simply by conducting drives,” he told TIMES.
Tamim said the large price gap between LPG and pipeline gas, combined with easy access to illegal connections, encouraged theft.
He said some consumers had also come to regard cheap pipeline gas as an entitlement.
Tamim identified heavy subsidies as a central part of the problem.
“The gas that people now receive for around Tk1,000 a month actually carries a subsidy of more than Tk3,000,” he said.
“This subsidy should be withdrawn and everyone should be given the opportunity to obtain a legal connection, with gas supplied through meters at the imported price.
“Even if the monthly cost rises to around Tk4,000, people will accept it. After that, imposing tough punishment on those who still take illegal connections would make genuine prevention possible.”
