From food to factories

Mushfique Wadud talks to experts about the recent gas crisis and the possible ways out of it

It was 4pm. Lunch was yet to be cooked in Shahana Islam’s household, as her family, including her six-year-old child, anxiously waited for the gas supply to return. It had been unavailable for five hours till that point, with no certainties as to how much longer the wait would persist.

Such anecdotes are almost commonplace in several parts of the city as households are met with an added ordeal of inefficient, inadequate gas supplies for most parts of the day. Housewives are barely able to cook during the day, as a result of the low pressure in the supply of gas, instead staying up well past midnight, when the pressure is adequate, to prepare meals for the next day. The situation has persisted since winter, when it had been even direr.