Gas load shedding: ‘It’s like we’re back in the Stone Age’

Protesters demand uninterrupted gas supply

DERA GHAZI KHAN:

Scores of residents of Dera Ghazi Khan took to the streets on Sunday to protest against excessive gas load shedding.

The protests blocked Quetta Road for three hours and held up stoves and kitchen utensils. They shouted slogans against the government and demanded that the government take action against excessive gas load shedding.

Gas load-shedding enrages business community

The demonstration was led by Dr Shaheena Najeeb Khosa, a senior leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

The protesters included several women and children. They walked up till Bridge Dot shouting slogans along the way.

Malik Mahboob Saqib, one of the protesters, said that if the government did not stop unscheduled gas outages, they would block traffic in all major cities.  Addressing the protesters, Khosa said that the government had failed in providing relief to the masses. She said state-owned institutions were nearing bankruptcy and the public now owed a massive foreign debt.



She said that the government had always made tall claims but had failed to deliver. She said the masses had been deprived of basic facilities including water, electricity and gas. Industries had to suffer due power outages and the 22-hour-long gas outages had made the lives of people miserable, she said.

Farhat Bukhari of the PTI said that LPG vendors had been charging exorbitant rates because the demand for LPG had skyrocketed because of unscheduled gas load shedding. She said the poor could not even afford to purchase firewood for fuel. “It’s like we’re back in the Stone Age.”

The protestors demanded uninterrupted supply of high-pressure gas.

The Gadai SHO met the demonstrators and spoke to the protesters but nothing materialised. The SHO then accompanied the protesters to the Sui Gas office.

The Sui Gas chief engineer said the gas pressure had dropped recently because they were cleaning out a well. He told the protesters that the authorities were trying to solve the problem as soon as possible.



The protesters suggested that the SNGPL cut down gas supply to industries so that domestic consumers could get uninterrupted supply of gas. They demanded equal distribution of gas from Raiwand to Dera Ghazi Khan and warned that they would hold country-wide protests if the issue was not solved in three days.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2016.