CNG Filling Station Owners to enforce non-stop strike from August 1

UNB, Dhaka

Bangladesh CNG Filling Station and Conversion Workshop Owners Association is "determined" on their stand to enforce countrywide nonstop strike from August 1 if their 6-point demands were not met by the government by July 31 deadline.
If the strike is enforced, people of all sections will have to suffer limitless sufferings for shutdown of the gas-filling stations as most vehicles nowadays are fuelled with Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).
The steering committee of the association held an emergency meeting on Saturday at a city hotel with the association president, Shafiul Islam Kamal, presiding to reaffirm their action plan. The meeting called upon the government to meet their demands otherwise they would enforce their pre-announced strike.
Presidents and general secretaries of 14 zonal committees of the association allover the country and central leaders attended the steering-committee meeting conducted by the association's secretary general, Zakir Hossain Nayon.
The CNG Filling Station Owners Association on July 11 took the decision in a general meeting to go for strike if their demands are not met.
Earlier, a few days back, the association leaders had a meeting over their demands with the government "but the meeting was not fruitful", according to the association leaders.
The government side told them to withdraw their condition of enforcing strike before the government could consider their matters, the association leaders said.
Talking to UNB on Sunday over phone the secretary general, Nayon, said they have been pressing their demands for last one year, but to no avail.
The six-point demands include to reduce the fed gas price that is purchased by the filling stations from the government gas companies from the present Tk 9.97 per cubic metre to Tk 5.23 and to reduce the CNG tariff (that is consumers have to pay during buying) from Tk 17.75 per cubic metre to Tk 13.26.
The association secretary general mentioned that the immediate-past caretaker government's Chief Adviser's Assistant on Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry Prof M Tamim had increased the prices by issuing a government notification on April 25, 2008. Earlier, the CNG tariff was Tk 8.50 while fed gas price was Tk 2.47 per cubic metre.
The association also demands installation of Electronic Volume Correction (EVC) metre at the filling stations replacing the present ordinary metre so that they can give gas bill as per pressure reading of gas.
It also demands cancellation of the provision for providing mandatory minimum bill of 30 percent gas use of total loaded gas in a filling station per month.