Indefinite protest: Transporters go on strike against CNG load-shedding

Protesters claim SSGC violated agreement and changed schedule.

KARACHI:

The All Pakistan CNG Association and Karachi Transport Ittehad (KTI) will go on strike from today for an indefinite period against the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) load-shedding in the city.

Leaders of both bodies announced the strike on Friday evening at a joint press conference at the Karachi Press Club. The leaders said that they are being forced to close CNG stations and take their vehicles off the roads.

KTI chairperson Irshad Bukhari, while addressing the media, said that they had converted their vehicles from diesel to CNG upon the directives of the Sindh High Court and the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He claimed that nearly 70 per cent of KTI vehicles run on CNG and cannot use any other type of fuel. "The severe CNG load-shedding schedule has forced us to go on strike," said Bukhari.

"We will continue our strike till the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) reduces load-shedding to three days a week."



All Pakistan CNG association chairperson Shabbir Suleman said that SSGC managing director agreed to suspend gas on Tuesday and Thursday and the company issued a notification to this effect on Monday after meeting with KTI and All Pakistan CNG Association.

"I cannot understand what happened afterwards that forced the company to issue another notification and start 48 hours of consecutive load-shedding on Thursday and Friday." said Suleman. "This is not acceptable since gas pressure is low and cannot meet our demands."

Suleman added that CNG stations are only consuming 80.3 million cubic feet of gas per day - which is a mere seven per cent of the total gas consumption - while a much larger amount is consumed by captive power plants but they are not subjected to any form of load-shedding.

"The SSGC wants to shut down our business but this will increase the daily expenses of the general public," said the chairperson. "The government will also have to spend millions to import fuel for the 4.5 million vehicles that currently run on CNG."

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2014.