Bangladesh News

CNG conversion of motor vehicles with substandard cylinders and parts continues unabated in the country as the Department of Explosives and the Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company Limited (RPGCL) fail to take stringent measures against the illegal act.

Numerous conversion workshops, with or without official approval, have been installing unauthorised cylinders and parts on vehicles, running the risk of fatal accidents, said sources.

During the past six months, six people died and around 20 others left injured as several vehicles with substandard CNG (compressed natural gas) conversion caught fire or the cylinders in them exploded.

Taking advantage of the lax monitoring of the authorities, the conversion workshops, most of them located in and around the capital, use inferior parts for the conversion job to attract vehicle owners looking for a bargain, the sources said.

While a proper CNG conversion carries the price tag between Tk 50,000 and Tk 70,000, the cost of an illegal conversion ranges anything between Tk 10,000 and Tk 20,000, said a number of CNG conversion experts.

All the specialised CNG cylinders are quite expensive as they have to be imported — mostly from Argentina, Brazil, UAE, South Korea and India.

According to conversion rules, a CNG cylinder has to withstand 3,000 pounds per square inch (PSI) of pressure.

Whereas many of the conversion workshops use low-cost cylinders that can barely withstand 1,000 PSI pressure. They usually use local cylinders made by welding metal pipes or cylinders meant for other gases such as oxygen.

Although some of the workshops use authorised parts, they lack the expertise to install the CNG conversion system ensuring all the safety features intact, leading to accidents, the sources added.

Amid a growing concern about hazardous CNG-converted vehicles running in the city, especially after Tuesday’s fire incident on a bus at Farmgate, The Daily Star contacted the explosives department and the RPGCL authorities for their comments on the cause of the fire.

They all insisted that the fire was originated in the engine of the bus.

When asked what the explosives department was doing to curb illegal CNG conversions, Engineer AHM Nurruzzaman, assistant explosives inspector of the department, said yesterday, “So far [since February this year] we shut down at least 20 unauthorised workshops that were engaged in installing substandard cylinders. We also seized about 30 substandard cylinders.”

No one was arrested or no case was filed in this connection, he said adding, “Our drive against illegal conversion centres and motor workshops is still on.”

Asked how the department would ensure that the closed down businesses would not resume their illegal activities in future, he said after shutting down an illegal workshop with the help of police, they “request police” to ensure that the businesses do not start illegal activities again.

He could not however explain how the department would effectively deter the crime of illegal CNG conversion without arresting anyone or filing any case. Nevertheless, he insisted on mass awareness to curb the illegal conversion work.

RPGCL is the government organ responsible for licensing CNG conversion workshops after proper scrutiny.

“The cylinders that exploded in the country so far were all substandard and none of the standard cylinders exploded till date,” claimed Shafiul Azam, a director (operation) of the RPGCL.

“The explosives department is responsible for monitoring whether any unauthorised workshop is installing CNG cylinders. Also, it is their duty to make sure the authorised conversion centres are not installing substandard cylinders,” he explained.

Currently, the country has 192 authorised CNG conversion centres and over 200 CNG filling stations.

The number of CNG-driven vehicles across the country stands at nearly 1.5 lakh while 6 lakh vehicles run on petrol or diesel. Over 1 lakh of the CNG vehicles are registered in Dhaka, according to BRTA and RPGCL sources.

The authorities of Department of Explosives or the RPGCL could not provide any figure of unauthorised CNG conversion centres in the country.