From bad to worse: Supply choked for CNG users as Ramazan begins

Duration of sale cut to 18 hours ‘to facilitate domestic consumers for sehar, iftar’.

LAHORE:

The Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) changed the schedule for provision of gas to CNG stations from Thursday, reducing weekly supply to 18 hours a week from 48 hours before Ramazan.

According to the new schedule released by SNGPL, gas would be provided to CNG stations on Monday and Thursday from 6am to 3pm. The schedule had been changed to facilitate the domestic consumers for sehar and iftar timings, an SNGPL statement said on Monday. Earlier, the stations were allowed to sell CNG for 48 hours a week, operating all day on Monday and Thursday.

The new schedule added to the miseries of CNG users who had already been queuing up for hours outside CNG stations to get gas, even under the 48 hours a week supply schedule. “We are fasting and instead of praying we are waiting in long queues in this heat at filling stations,” said Rasheed Ajmal, a consumer at a CNG station at Akbar Chowk. In the earlier schedule, some consumers would be able to get gas at night but now they must face scorching heat and humidity in Ramazan, he added.

Another motorist, Muhammad Kamran, waiting in a queue at a CNG filling station in Garden Town, said the masses now had to stand in queues to buy rations at subsidised rates and then queue up at CNG stations, forgoing religious rituals in Ramazan for somewhat affordable fuel.

Many CNG station owners and motorists were not certain about the supply schedule on Thursday. Soon after the news was reported in media, motorists rushed to CNG stations. However, a number of stations suspended supply soon after the official notification, while many others continued to sell CNG.

The sudden announcement did not go down well with CNG users. Shamsul Mulk, a rickshaw driver on Bund Road, said the abrupt announcement was completely unwarranted. “Why the sudden change? They could have made this announcement a few days earlier so that people were aware of the change well in time. Why did consumers have to find this out on the first day of Ramazan after they had waited in queues for hours?”

All Pakistan CNG Association (APCNGA) rejected the new gas load management schedule issued by SNGPL for the CNG sector in Punjab. The association called the schedule permitting provision of gas for nine hours twice a week unreasonable and unacceptable. The CNG industry in Punjab cannot survive if it is forced to work for only 18 hours a week, said Ghiyas Abdullah Paracha, the APCNGA Supreme Council chairman. He called the new schedule a conspiracy and said it would have an impact on 600,000 CNG-converted vehicles, affect 50,000 jobs and billions of rupees in investment.

Paracha said some elements wanted the CNG sector to wither away under the pressure of expenses “which we will never allow”. He said the APCNGA would not bow to pressure and would do whatever was needed to safeguard the legitimate interests of “world’s largest CNG industry worth Rs450 billion”.

“I do not think it will be feasible for me to run my 800-cc car on gas anymore”, said Jawwad Ali, who was waiting in a line of some 50 vehicles at a CNG station in Johar Town. He said a full gas tank lasted him two days due to which he already had to run his car on petrol at least two days a week. He said there had been hope that the consumers would get relief in Ramazan and CNG hours would be extended but the opposite had happened. He said with decreased time, people would have to further cut down on their travel in view of higher petrol cost.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1^st, 2014.