About Tk 18,000 crore outstanding utilities bills from several state-owned agencies remain pending for a long time causing huge problems, officials said.

The arrears of gas and electricity bills of various government and private organizations stand at around Tk 18,000 crore, officials concerned said.

Recently, a meeting was held in the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources to collect the outstanding gas and electricity bills. At that meeting, it was decided to disconnect the services lines if the gas and electricity bills were not paid within a stipulated time.

The distribution companies claim that no one has been able to achieve colleting the pending bills because of the crisis due to coronavirus. The factory owners are not paying the bills but they are putting pressure on them when they want to collect the bills. This is not going to be done as there is a fear that the export process will be disrupted if lines are disconnected of the particular bill defaulting industries.

The State Minister for Power and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said it was unbelievable that such a huge amount of bills remain outstanding. Among the government institutions, city corporations and municipalities have huge bills in arrears. Industrial factory owners also do not pay the arrears bill. Being strict in bill collection creates pressure in many ways. If this continues, the gas and electricity distribution companies will go bankrupt.

According to the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources, there are around Tk 9,394 crore bills which remain pending with the customers of various gas distribution companies under Petrobangla till last October. Meanwhile, the amount of arrears bill worth Tk 8,556 crore also remain outstanding with the customers of the power distribution companies.

Meanwhile, a concerned official of the ministry said that many private industrial entrepreneurs are delaying to pay their outstanding gas and electricity bills due to various reasons. Although the government has announced opportunity to pay their bills in installments, the response has not been as expected. Many of the traders are politically influential and so they are not able to exert pressure to realize the pending bills.

Out of the outstanding gas bill of Tk 9,394 crore, around Tk 2,378 crore is arrears in public and private power plants. Of this, the arrears of government power plants are Tk 1,097 crore and private arrears are Tk 1,281 crore. On the other hand, the total arrears stand around taka 65 crore for public captive power plants and private captive owners are in arrears of Tk 1,461 crore.

Among the public and private fertilizer factories, the gas bill arrears are around Tk 227 crore, while the industrial arrears are around Tk 1,656crore. Of this, Tk 43 crore is arrears to state-owned factories and Tk 1,611 crore is arrears to industrialists.

Among the commercial sector establishments, hotels and restaurants are in arrears of Tk 21 crore and small and cottage industries are in arrears of Tk 77 crore. The arrears in the residential sector are Tk 2,642 crore.

Besides, the CNG gas bill arrears in the CNG sector are Tk 854 crore and in the tea garden arrears are around Tk 9 crore.

According to the report of Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Caompany Limted for the 2019-20 fiscal year, Titas sold gas worth Tk 16,950.41 crore in the last fiscal year. On the other hand, they have collected taka 15 thousand 182 crore 32 lakh. As a result, the company has arrears of Tk 1,768 crore in just one financial year. In the previous financial year (2018-19), Titas gas has sold gas worth Tk 13 thousand 622 crore of gas. In contrast, the bill was in arrears of taka 546 crore 87 lakh. At present, the total outstanding bills of the company is around Tk 5,000 crore.

Some 1,203 cases are pending in the court for the purpose of recovery of these arrears bills. Titas has filed 168 more cases in the court in the 2019-20 financial year. In the last financial year, 148 of these cases have been disposed off through which Titas has collected Tk 98.83 crore from the customers.

Ministry sources said that various government and private organizations generate electricity with gas buying from Petrobangla. Petrobangla also imports liquefied natural gas (LNG) due to the gas crisis in the country. Regular LNG prices have to be paid whether the gas bill is collected in the country or not. In such situation Petrobangla is in deep crisis.

On the other hand, the government power distribution companies of the country buy electricity from PDB and distribute it to the customers. Distribution companies cannot pay the price of electricity purchased from PDB if the consumers do not pay the electricity bill properly.