CNG crisis in Pakistan Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on email Share on print More Sharing Services 26 Sareen Shahbaz Pakistani Government receives commission on buying petrol. Therefore, it creates an artificial CNG crisis to increase petrol consumption, which consequently results in increase of commission. Most vehicles in Pakistan run on CNG nowadays. Pakistan has the greatest number of CNG refill stations and CNG vehicles. But today, Pakistan is facing CNG crisis. In Pakistan, the greatest amount of CNG is used in the Punjab province, which is the country’s largest province with respect to population. In 2011, CNG has only been available four days per week. CNG has been in use by Pakistan since 1992. In the beginning, Pakistani Government persuaded the public, time to time, through media to use CNG kits in their vehicles. Also, investors were offered discounts if they invested in CNG refill stations. Lack of petrol and diesel and oil crisis while the easy availability of CNG and its properties like it pollutes the air much lesser than oil, became the factors which influenced the public with a CNG revolution. The public started using CNG in a few years; especially the public transport was now running on CNG. According to the statistics of 2009, there were 21, 91,000 vehicles using CNG Engines/CNG Kits and 2941 CNG refill stations in the country. It is true that no one may be certain about the real causes behind the CNG crisis in Pakistan, but some public apprehensions seem nothing less than true. The CNG crisis in Pakistan, rather than getting better, is worsening each day. The start of the year 2012 was marked in Pakistan by strikes against the Pakistani Government. And these were not only from the Pakistani public, but by the CNG Association as well. According to the Pakistani Government, the reason behind CNG crisis in winter is the excessive use of gas. The gas starts freezing in the pipes and its pressure becomes very low. There is a sharp increase in the use of CNG vehicles as well, but the production of gas isn’t seeing any increments with that proportion. That is how, Pakistani Government continued CNG load-shedding in the summers. The Pakistani public is extremely offended at the Government due to the on-going CNG load-shedding. Majority of public transporters in Pakistan don’t do their transport business during the days CNG isn’t available, that’s about three days in a week (as of 2011), this causes not only a great loss to the transporters themselves but the life of the commoners is also affected adversely. The students face difficulty in going to their educational institutes due to the in availability of transport. School and office staff that uses the public transport, arrives their offices late, and this happens more often. Patients suffering from fatal diseases die, due the in availability of transport to the hospitals during the days CNG isn’t available. Same is the case with small-scale-businesses and traders, due to CNG load-shedding, the business of small-scale traders is also affected badly. These traders mostly use CNG vehicles to transport goods like vegetables, fruits, dairy products and baked items to shops. Many different rumours and apprehensions are found in the Pakistani public about the causes/facts/reasons behind CNG load-shedding and CNG crisis in Pakistan. One of them is that Pakistani Government receives commission on buying petrol. Therefore, it creates an artificial CNG crisis to increase petrol consumption, which consequently results in increase of its commission. Another apprehension is that the government wants to distract public’s attention from its policies, that’s why it creates the crisis. It is also believed that CNG crisis is created to inflate CNG prices.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Aug 2013 20:03:06 +0000