PPP senators warn of blocking Sindh gas supply to provinces

Emphasise Sindh has first right to consume gas produced in the province

ISLAMABAD: Senators belonging to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which has its government in Sindh, warned the central government on Monday that it would not allow other provinces to consume the gas being produced in the province.

Protesting against the cut in gas supply to Sindh in a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Petroleum, the PPP senators pointed out that under the 18th Constitution Amendment, Sindh had the first right of consuming gas being produced in the province.

“Industrialists and people of Sindh have the first right to consume this gas; the gas is not available for cooking and transportation in the province,” a senator said.

They claimed that no settlement had been reached on gas provision between Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and the Sindh energy minister.

SSGC Managing Director Amin Rajput assured the Senate committee that he would settle the issue of gas supply to urban and rural areas of Sindh in the next few days.

He revealed that Sindh was facing a shortage of 115 million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfd) in the current winter and the public gas utility was trying to implement a load management plan in an attempt to overcome the scarcity.

He acknowledged that the province was facing low gas pressure and pointed out that “the main issue pertaining to gas shortage in Sindh is uninterrupted gas supply to the zero-rated industry, which was not included in the load management plan last year”.

He proposed cutting off gas supply to the general industry on Sunday and 50% reduction in supply to captive power plants, which he believed would resolve the crisis.

The committee chairman gave directive that the problem of gas shortage should be resolved in a couple of days.

Senator Imamuddin said SSGC had cut off gas supply to the export-oriented industry, adding that gas production in Sindh was more than its consumption.



Senator Sherry Rehman sought answers to her questions from SSGC officials and called for stopping the briefing by the SSGC managing director. She asked for giving reply to her queries before starting the briefing.

She said children could not go to school because of suspension of gas supply, adding that the central government had claimed that gas supply had been stopped from Gambit but according to her information the gas field was continuously providing the energy.

She stressed that the suspension of gas supply in Sindh was against constitution of the country. “The gas producing province has the first right of use; gas producing province should be provided gas first,” she said.



Senator Sassui Palijo alleged that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in the centre was befooling people and asked why it was continuing the policies framed by the previous government. 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2018.

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