Chairman of UzbekNefteGaz Alisher Sultanov, answering a question on plans for gas provision to provinces at the June 14 meeting of the International Press Club in Tashkent, said that things won’t get better in the provinces that had been deprived of gas for decades and that "people should hold no illusions".

He said that in those provinces the company will work under the government gas supply scheme, which provides for the supply of gas cylinders and liquefied gas and will build infrastructure, and for heating there is a coal supply scheme.

"The gas supply system in provinces over the past 25 years had been neglected. The gas distribution network had been in free flow, no one owned it in terms of designing. Any resident or organization could connect to the pipe at any time. The pipes were installed correctly, but no proper calculations were made. The people wrongly think if there is a pipe then there is gas. But, sorry, there are such things as hydraulics, designing, calculation of diameter, pressure. For normal pressure, there should be enough compressors on the main pipeline," Sultanov said.

"Before everyone used to connect to gas supply pipes at own will and this "killed the whole system". By doing this, we have destroyed the areas where there was gas. Now there is gas, but there is no pressure. And now people are installing pumps from China," the chairman of UzbekNefteGaz added.

Alisher Sultanov also lamented the consumers' wasteful attitude, and in many cases the reluctance to pay for the supplied gas. "Gas is a resource that is very expensive to extract and is labor-intensive. Why do some people allow themselves not to pay for it for years? "- the head of the holding asked.

"To make some tea, people boil half a liter of water, and immediately turn it [gas cylinder] off. Why? Because they had paid for it. There will be no gas there. There should be no illusions. We will only work on the liquefied gas supply scheme. I suggest you to save energy," Sultanov said.