LAHORE: Majority of the city’s fuel stations stopped selling petrol and diesel around noon on Tuesday in anticipation of a possible increase in prices of petroleum products, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Citizens’ problems magnified as CNG stations were also closed due to gas load shedding. Petrol pumps owners expected that Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) will increase the petrol price by Rs 2.5 per litre and diesel by Rs 3 per litre.
Thus, the fuel stations in Model Town, Faisal Town, Garden Town, Gulberg, Ferozepur Road, The Mall, Cantonment, Iqbal Town and other areas of the city stopped selling petrol and displayed banners claiming lack of petrol supplies from refineries. Loose petrol sellers exploited the opportunity and charged Rs 100 per litre for petrol.
It exposed the weak management of the City District Government Lahore, which remained absent in the entire episode, leaving the citizens at hoarders’ mercy. The rickshaw drivers charged extra from the commuters owing to scarcity of petrol.
The citizens criticized the poor management of the district government for they could not control the petrol pumps’ closures. They said the petrol pumps had fuel but were not selling it, as they wanted to earn profit when the petroleum prices increased.
They said the district management should have ensured petrol availability, but it silently supported petrol pumps for plundering people. Those motorists who could not get CNG on Monday and were thinking to run their vehicles on petrol were in deep trouble.
“There was not enough petrol in my car therefore I left my car at my office and used a rickshaw to get back home,” said a business executive Rafiq Ahmed. He said the government had failed to control ‘anti-social elements’, which wandered freely and were plundering people.
Another motorist, Jabbar Ahmed said the pumps opened in the morning and he filled his motorbike’s tank, but in the afternoon the same pumps claimed petrol’s non-availability. “I wonder how the petrol ended,” he exclaimed.
