Thangamara Mohila Sabuj Sangha (TMSS) lies 6 km north of Bogra town and just beside the Dhaka-Rangpur highway. Established in 1980, we are told, TMSS emerged as an organisation of the poor, by the poor and for the poor. The total beneficiaries till the time we visited the place very recently are reported to be roughly 6,00,000. The size if the complex on both sides of the road seemingly supports the size of operation of TMSS.

But the point for which I picked up the subject is that about 1,500 women of the organisation are employed in weaving, processing of yarn and dyeing of fabrics. These women, reportedly, come from very poor families -- mostly from the "unheard and unsung" segment of the society. Some of them are widowed, some divorced and others reeling under the shadow of separation. In conventional concept of poverty, they could possibly be dubbed as the "extreme poor" population. Their monthly income hovers around Tk.

1000-1500 to put the poor on an uneven keel. They can hardly send their children to schools, care for illness and cope with the contingent crises.

Any way, the mostly hand-made clothes are sold to different regions of the country. The quality of the processed yarn and fineness and look of fabrics that follow from dyeing, needless to mention, go to determine the quality of the output sold and the consequent competitiveness in the market. The processing and dyeing, disconcertingly, take place through the use of traditional support items like firewood, coals and others. Allegedly, the heat cannot be controlled, so the distribution of colour gets skewed at times to tell upon the quality of the fabric. The management informed me that in case gas could be available, their cost of production could come down by as much as 40 per cent from the present level of processing and dyeing costs. Further, the resulting improvements in the quality of the product and lowering of prices would inject a demand for the products and hence a demand for the services of the women working there. This would also allow a diversification of products as clean energy would enable a quick completion of the tasks. That would also help them dry the fabrics, if and when needed. I was told that gas access to such activities would raise the income of these distressed women by 10-15 per cent, on average.

I find that the rise in income so said amounts to 15kg of rice per month for the poor family. It also means a rice security for the household for a week or so. I can then possibly presume that access to gas by the TMSS could help raise rice security (largely food security) by 84 days of a year. This may sound minuscule from the point of view of the rich but mountainous from the point of view of "unheard and unsung" class of poor women that TMSS is targeting.

Besides, I am told that on average 20,000-25,000 people are trained in the campus during a year. These people are again mostly the poor men and women picked up for income generating activities. The organisation finds it difficult to manage traditional fuels and provide cost effective food for the poor. As we all know, the energy that a two-burner emits would cost Tk.1400 per month for the traditional fuels. In other words, in cooking for the poor by traditional fuels, the said organisation spends roughly 3.5 times more than similar output from natural ags supply. The money saved could be devoted for furthering the economic and social cause for which the organisation was set up.

Belkuchi upazial lies in Sirajgonj district. The place is famous for handlooms. I am told that there were about 30-40 thousand weavers in this upazila but competition from modern textiles laid off half of them. About 60 per cent of the weavers are poor (owning on average 2-3 looms). My recent visit with my young friend Habib revealed to me the reeling conditions under which they are operating. Tree covers were being used. Now trees are uprooted and felled and deforestation is looming large. Use of coals is causing health problems and environmental pollution. The weavers, processor and dyers have been struggling for a long time to have access to gas facilities. According to the weavers -- mostly poor -- the access to gas would reduce the cost of processing and dyeing by about 50 per cent. That would also help raise the quality of the product and open up the door for diversification of products. Gas access to that area could possible bring back some of the weavers in the realm reducing their woes. The gas demand for that particular village could exceed the total demand of households in Sirajganj district.

Rich or poor, all the weavers were eagerly waiting for a connection to their households and loom houses. Besides benefiting from clean and less costly energy used for cooking purposes, the weavers could grow competitive by producing good quality varieties of products. Their willingness to pay for connection ranged between Tk.50,000 for the rich to Tk. 20,000 for the poor (but with installments for borrowed funds). Poor weavers would welcome alternative arrangements of funds that could be recouped through their savings on account of energy costs.

Gonoshastha and Grameen Textile mill is located in Sirajgang. Perhaps, it's the single textile mill where 80 per cent of production workers are women. The working women were recruited from families faced with economic hardships. Many of them are household heads, living separately, widowed or divorced. The textile mill started operation with furnace oil but now has access to gas. Every month the mill pays Tk.12 lakh to the gas authority. I am told that a shift from furnace oil to gas provided three main benefits to the mill. First, the irregular and irritant furnace oil gave way to a clean and cost effective operation for better (per unit cost is reported to be 60 per cent less now than before); second, production fluctuations are reduced and third, production level has gone up. I presume that apart from the benefits of cost reduction, clean environment would go to the physical benefit of the poor women working in that mill.

Now consider an Aluminum factory in Bogra. About 50 workers are working there on daily wage basis. The plant is using furnace oil, coal and firewood. The owner of the plant informed me that there was a huge demand for his products throughout Bangladesh. But due to irregular supply of furnace oil and concomitant rise in production costs, he was unable to buy more machinery and employ more workers. Provided there was access to gas, his plant would have gone for double shift implying that more poor workers would have got jobs in that factory.

The above-mentioned examples are just tip of the iceberg. There are millions of cottage and small industries in Bangladesh, run by the poor either as worker or owners, which are being forced to be out of the market due to high production costs. Say, a ceramic factory in or around Dhaka run by gas is more cost effective than the same in Bogra run by traditional fuels. In fact, one famous ceramic factory in Bogra was closed down due to failure to meet competition. The poor production workers are now forced to face the problems of food in security.

We, therefore, need to take into careful cognisance the ramifications of gas supply for the poor. It is not only at household level but also at commercial and industry levels that access to gas could go a long way in poverty reduction. Gas gears up growth through production of fertilizer and generation of power. But the direct impacts need to be reckoned with in the event of demand analysis. Let me conclude with the comments from a poor weaver: "Gas is like electricity. Once it comes to the neighbour, I feel an urge to have it no matter at what cost". This seemingly says that gas could be correlated with women, weavers and their woes!

Abdul Bayes is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University