KARACHI: I am concerned about our nation’s sense of self-entitlement and our complete inability to see the big picture. I want to take up the recent issue regarding the availability and price of CNG as an example to illustrate my point. There is a lot of hue and cry over the spike in CNG prices and how the common man is suffering because of it. However, we are completely ignoring the fact that we should not be using CNG in our vehicles in the first place.
CNG is a scarce resource and should only be used in areas that help maximise the overall welfare of society. Using CNG in our cars does not optimise our general welfare. In fact, it is only worsening the problem as it is causing a shortage of gas for industrial use — the only place where it should be used. However, nobody seems to want to understand this simple fact. It seems that, as long as we are not required to face any hardships, we don’t really care about what happens to our country in the short and long run.
The government should actually raise CNG prices further to discourage its use in vehicles and, at the same time, develop the public transport industry to encourage people to use public transport instead of private vehicles. It is time we stopped being self-centred and looked towards Pakistan’s future.
Junaid Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, January 12th, 2013.
