Gas management, low pressure irk consumers

LAHORE - Loadshedding and low pressure of gas caused nuisance not only for the domestic consumers but also for the CNG consumers who are now compelled to get fuel for their vehicles in long queues, revealed a survey conducted by The Nation on Thursday.
The consumers condemning the policies of the government protested against the shortage of gas while queuing up to get fuel from the CNG filling stations. Some of them were of the view that getting fuel for their vehicles from CNG filling stations is a painful task because for getting CNG they have to spend hours at filling stations due to which they could not reach their destinations in time.
The long queues of vehicles including cars, rickshaws and vans were witnessed in various areas of the City particularly at such CNG filling stations situated in rush areas particularly the commercial and other business areas of the City including Cantt, Thokar Niaz Beg and other areas fall in the interior city such as the CNG filling stations situated at Lawrence Road, Jail Road, Lower Mall, Ferozpur Road, Empress Road and the CNG filling stations located in Gulberg.
A rickshaw driver, Muhammad Arshad said that he was in trouble when a passenger for Gulberg has booked him saying that he was in hurry but he due to less fuel in his rickshaw has to stop at a CNG filling station at Lawrence Road where dozens of vehicles were already standing in queues. I tried the next CNG filling station located at Queens Road to get fuel but the situation was same at that filling station which disappointed me and I apologised the passenger saying I cant go ahead, he added.
Another rickshaw driver Ramzan said that it already was hard to earn money for fulfilling his basic needs and to feed his family in prevailing situation of economic crunch and further the loadshedding of gas and unavailability of CNG marred his only source of income.
Besides the rickshaw drivers and van, the private vehicle owners and the domestic consumers also commented on the situation saying that the rulers in fact do not want to give relief to the people because they have failed to make such policies beneficial for the masses.
They are doing so deliberately while their motive behind the situation is to punish the people for diverting their attention from the other issues such as increasing unemployment, poverty and the economic recession due to their poor policies.
In this regard, office-bearer of CNG Association of Pakistan Captain (r) Shujjah said besides the CNG Association, rickshaw drivers and van drivers associations also announced to join the protest and strike call against the expected raise in gas tariff in January and the loadshedding.
He said CNG Association have announced the strike across the country on December 30, before the announcement of raise so that they could stop the decision of raise in gas tariff before its implementation. He said that the government instead of giving relief to the masses, creating the hurdles and increasing problems for the laymen. He said the CNG Association also demanded the government to fix the gas tariff according to petrol tariff on monthly basis keeping the gas tariff half of the petrol.
Gas is available in abundance in the reservoirs but the government is present it in wrong pretext showing shortage of gas in the country, said an official of Oil and Gas Development Corporation on the request of anonymity adding that there was no need of load shedding of gas in the country because government have ample volume of gas in the reservoirs which are sufficient according to the need of the country.
He disclosed that government still has about 500 million cubic feet gas in the reservoirs, which is enough according to the required volume.
Previous government had made plans in this regard and according to plans, the given task have been achieved and the work on such projects almost has accomplished which would fulfill the needs of the masses, he concluded.