Daily use items: Traders worry about fuel shortages

RAWALPINDI: Barricades on major roads leading to the twin cities have started affecting the supply of fuel to the twin cities with citizens’ fearing price hikes and shortages of the commodity in the coming days.

“I saw petrol stations closing up as they are short of fuel supplies. If the situation does not improve, the petrol stations of Rawalpindi will be closed by Monday night,” feared Irfan Mahmood, who works at a petrol pump in Saddar.

He noted that some oil tankers have been stuck on GT Road and the motorway.

Further, transporters in the garrison city were angry over the seizure of their trucks and containers.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Shakeel Qureshi, general secretary of the Rawalpindi Goods Carriers Association, said that police had seized around 500 containers in Rawalpindi alone, adding that only 150 were used in the city on October 28.

He said that his association was planning to hold a press conference to raise their voice against the illegal confiscation of their vehicles and containers. He noted that if their reports turned out be accurate, they would file a case against the government in the high court.

Qureshi noted that members of the association had been involved in transporting all kinds of goods from Karachi and other major cities to the twin cities. He said that seizure of the containers and blockades of roads would lead to supply shortages of essential items such as medicines, powdered milk, and other items.

He claimed that the Rawalpindi police still had to pay around Rs2 million to the owners of containers that were seized during the PTI and PAT sits-in in 2014.

He accused the police of forcibly seizing containers without unloading the goods inside, causing additional losses to transporters and consignment owners.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 1^st, 2016.