CNG stations to be shut down indefinitely
The strike will start today, region chairman demands they be allowed to sell gas at Rs70 per kg.
FAISALABAD:
The local CNG Association will be on an indefinite strike from Sunday (today) to protest Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority’s ‘wrong interpretation’ of the Supreme Court order to reduce gas prices.
This was announced by the Faisalabad region’s chairman Anjam Niaz Chaudhry at the association’s meeting on Friday. Chaudhry said the court had told the authority to bring gas prices down to the per kilogram price in July, which he said was Rs70.
However, the authority had slashed the prices impractically. CNG station owners purchase the gas at Rs48/kg, he said, adding that after adding taxes, employees’ wages and other miscellaneous charges the per kg price came to around Rs68. “The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority has told us to sell the gas at Rs54, which means we sell the gas at a Rs14 loss per kilogramme,” Chaudhry said.
The regional chairman said that their strike would cripple the provincial public transport system, 60 per cent of which runs on CNG.
The meeting was attended by presidents of other districts including Jhang, Chiniot, Toba Tek Singh, Sargodha, Mianwali and Khushab.
Separately, the association’s Ahmad Pur East’s office bearers also met on Friday and issued a statement condemning the new price formula.
The association’s chapter president Mian Arshad, in the statement, blamed both the government and the Supreme Court for the troubles of the CNG stations’ owners. The Zardari government under the pressure of the oil mafia and foreign pressures had been trying, for years, to shut down CNG stations, said the statement, and now they are using the Supreme Court to do so.
A billion-rupee industry is at the brink of bankruptcy because of wrong government policies. Arshad said that the court should have listened to what the CNG Association had to say before arriving at a decision. He said the no CNG station owner was making any profit. Arshad warned that hundreds of thousands of people would end up unemployed if the policy wasn’t changed for which the government will be responsible.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 4th, 2012.
The local CNG Association will be on an indefinite strike from Sunday (today) to protest Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority’s ‘wrong interpretation’ of the Supreme Court order to reduce gas prices.
This was announced by the Faisalabad region’s chairman Anjam Niaz Chaudhry at the association’s meeting on Friday. Chaudhry said the court had told the authority to bring gas prices down to the per kilogram price in July, which he said was Rs70.
However, the authority had slashed the prices impractically. CNG station owners purchase the gas at Rs48/kg, he said, adding that after adding taxes, employees’ wages and other miscellaneous charges the per kg price came to around Rs68. “The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority has told us to sell the gas at Rs54, which means we sell the gas at a Rs14 loss per kilogramme,” Chaudhry said.
The regional chairman said that their strike would cripple the provincial public transport system, 60 per cent of which runs on CNG.
The meeting was attended by presidents of other districts including Jhang, Chiniot, Toba Tek Singh, Sargodha, Mianwali and Khushab.
Separately, the association’s Ahmad Pur East’s office bearers also met on Friday and issued a statement condemning the new price formula.
The association’s chapter president Mian Arshad, in the statement, blamed both the government and the Supreme Court for the troubles of the CNG stations’ owners. The Zardari government under the pressure of the oil mafia and foreign pressures had been trying, for years, to shut down CNG stations, said the statement, and now they are using the Supreme Court to do so.
A billion-rupee industry is at the brink of bankruptcy because of wrong government policies. Arshad said that the court should have listened to what the CNG Association had to say before arriving at a decision. He said the no CNG station owner was making any profit. Arshad warned that hundreds of thousands of people would end up unemployed if the policy wasn’t changed for which the government will be responsible.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 4th, 2012.