The next suggestion might be considered a little unconventional. To the demographic that reads English newspapers (that’s you, dear reader) it might be unpalatable. Sit down before reading this.
The petroleum and natural resources minister is in talks with the CNG dealers’ association to convince them to end their strike, which will enter its sixth day by the time you read this. Our modest proposition: he shouldn’t. The government should give the CNG stations enough rope to hang themselves. See, at the moment, the ministry is trying to drill sense into the association and saying they shouldn’t undertake such drastic steps in protest of what is only a proposed cess, not an actual one. Though that is all well and good, he should let an underling do this while trying to make sure the association doesn’t tag the oil tankers along in their strike.
A country like Pakistan, given its energy profile and, within it, the profile of its thermal fuel mix, cannot afford to splurge natural gas on CNG stations. Using CNG for personal transport is an issue for the elite and urban middle-classes. The rest use public transport and two-wheelers. The latter don’t use CNG and those from the former that do, could be provided CNG by the government at a subsidised rate. This step isn’t possible for petrol-based public transport on account of pilferage. Till date, however, there is no scalable, mass-based method to siphon off and pilfer CNG.
It is a shame that the ongoing strike did not take place in the winters. There would have been lesser gas load-shedding then. Even in the summers, a large number of industrial units are being rendered inactive, causing scores of people to lose their livelihoods.
The demand – given the fact that our natural gas resources are limited – to be provided gas to heat our cooking stoves at homes, to power our factories and to provide CNG stations is unreasonable. One of them has to go. The responsible approach would be to let the transport option go, other than for public transport.
Our hearts go out to those entrepreneurs who were incentivised to go into this business. But this nonsense should end.
