Private companies that are involved in the LPG business will also be engaged in the awareness campaign if needed. 

“If need be, we’ll go for a mechanism to enforce the LPG companies to run a campaign at their own initiative through the electronic, print and other media to make people aware about the safe and secure use of LPG,” Energy Secretary Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem said while addressing a press briefing at the Energy Ministry on Thursday.

The Energy Division arranged the press briefing against the backdrop of a series of recent incidents of fire and explosions from household LPG containers that killed a number of people.

Other senior officials of the Energy Division were present at the briefing. 

“Actually, LPG is safe in its nature. It’s a by-product of natural gas which is bottled at very low pressure and normally, it carries no risk of any fire incident,” said the energy secretary.

He claimed that the fire incidents which took place in recent days were because of wrong use and leakage in the regulating point of a household LPG bottle.  

Muneem said it was found during investigation that either there were leakages in the LPG bottles’ regulating points or the safety valves were not working. “As a result, gas comes out of the bottle and accumulates in a small room and it bursts into flames when people start an oven through a matchstick,” he said.

He said all the incidents took place for lack of awareness. “Many people try to heat the LPG container to get maximum gas which sometimes leads to fire incident.”

He urged the consumers to mandatorily maintain safety rules of the LPG container. “You must shut down the switch of the regulator of the LPG container and again open the door and windows of the kitchen before switching on the oven to be sure that gas goes out of the room.”