In Lahore, acute gas shortage cripples city life

Women have to wake up before Fajr prayers for cooking because gas pressure drops with dawn

LAHORE: Even after the closure of several industrial units across the province and rationing of natural gas to the CNG sector, the gas utility company failed to ensure uninterrupted gas supply to the domestic consumers as per announced by government policy.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, business leaders from Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and other cities highlighted that the utility company had refused them gas supply since the start of the winter.

A steel mill owner, Sheikh Muhammad Hanif, said officials of the Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) had cut gas supply of his mill a couple of weeks ago.

“The gas utility company officials came at 03:00am to cut the supply and now we have decided to shut the mill for an indefinite period. Under the current economic situation, it is not viable for small mill owners to keep their production units operational in absence of basic inputs,” he said and lamented that he has been a bona fide taxpayer since 1973 but the current economic crunch was hitting hard to all business community.

“Our fuel cost has been increased by a whopping 65% after installation of coal gasifiers. But still, we are in the business otherwise it is very difficult to keep our production facilities operational and retain workers.

Earlier, we were running our mill on gas which cost us around Rs2,000 and now we are using coal that costs Rs3,300 a tonne,” another steel mill owner Mian Muhammad Saeed disclosed.

Textile millers of Faisalabad and general industry in Rawalpindi and other parts of the country also have similar woes. CNG station owners, who managed to remain in business, are also bearing the brunt of acute gas shortage across the country as the gas utility company has started rationing of gas in the CNG sector.

The ongoing gas crisis has also created a huge trouble for domestic consumers who used to be on the priority list of gas utility companies. But there would be hardly any neighbourhood in the provincial capital or rest of the province where citizens were not complaining about low gas pressure or gas load-shedding.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Khalida Adnan pointed out that women in her neighbourhood were facing immense difficulties in cooking and performing other domestic chores.

“Women should wake up before Fajr prayers for the cooking because gas pressure drops with the dawn. Most residents have already switched to LPG, which is an additional burden on their pockets since LPG prices have been multiplied with the drop in mercury level,” she complained.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2020.