Petrol sales suspended due to anticipated price hike

Long queues witnessed in front of pumps that briefly resumed sales.


Shahram Haq April 01, 2011

LAHORE:


Several petrol pumps on Thursday suspended the sale of petrol expecting a rise in petroleum prices. These pumps, however, continued selling diesel oil.


The situation caused severe inconvenience to the commuters.

Residents of areas falling in Lahore Cantonment were the worst affected as all the petrol pumps there remained closed.

Yasir Khan, a motorcyclist in Cantonment, said he had been moving around in search of petrol for half an hour.

“Every petrol pump I visited said that they had run out of fuel,” he said. “They’re a mafia. How can all of them run out of stock at the same time,” he commented.

Long queues of cars and motorcycles were observed at the few pumps that resumed sales for some time in other parts of the city.

Usman Ahmad, waiting in a queue at a petrol pump on Ferozepur Road, said the pump was not selling petrol for more than Rs100 to anyone. He said he must have wasted as much fuel in searching for a pump that was selling petrol.

Ahmad criticised the government for not taking action against pumps hoarding on petrol.

Some people had to walk long distances, dragging their motorcycles that had run out of fuel.

Saleem Ahmad, one such motorcyclist on Sarfaraz Rafiqi Road, said that his motorcycle had run out of petrol. He said he went to three petrol pumps and all three said they had run out of petrol. He said from then onwards he had been dragging his motorcycle.

Ahmad said usually he got his motorcycle’s fuel tank filled on the last day of the month. He said he could not do so on Wednesday because he was watching Pakistan-India semifinal.

He said suspending sales ahead of a price hike had become a common practice with the petrol pumps. “I wonder if the government is unable to take action against these pumps or if it is condoning this as legitimate business strategy,” he said.

A petrol pump owner speaking on condition of anonymity admitted that the petrol pumps suspended supply ahead of an expected hike in prices.

He said the margin between the sale price and the purchase price had fallen so low that suspending supply whenever a price hike was expected was the only way to make some profit. He said most petrol pumps ordered an extra tanker in such situations to increase profits.

Petrol Pump Owners’ Association (PPOA) Information Secretary Khwaja Atif said the association does not support such petrol pumps. However, he said, it was the government’s responsibility to penalise these pumps.

“We can only request them to resume operations. We can’t force them to submit to our will,” he said. He said the association could not take legal action against the pumps.

However, he said, the association would not support the pumps if the government took any action against them.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 01st, 2011.

COMMENTS

Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ