The Sui Southern Gas Company’s (SSGC) Customer Relations Department (CRD) conducted a raid against illegal gas consumption in the heavily-populated Al-Asif Square in Sohrab Goth area on Tuesday.
The CRD team had received information that gas worth Rs 5 billion (37,220 million cubic feet) was stolen on a yearly basis in and around Al-Asif Square, after which they decided to launch a major crackdown on the culprits.
The team disconnected 500 domestic connections that were taking gas directly from the main supply through rubber pipes. The CRD team cracked down against more than 15 local restaurants that were running their businesses by using illegal direct domestic connection. In addition, a number of sewing factories were running heavy generators on domestic lines and the CRD team summarily disconnected their supply.
The raiding party included CRD’s General Manager (GM) Mujtaba Ahmed, Additional General Manager Fazal Rashid, DCM (Recovery) Tasawar Mustafa, and Raid Incharge Nawab Ali Shah. Al-Asif Square Residents’ Association cooperated fully with the SSGC team and informed them that the residents were facing tremendous issues in paying their gas bills and in getting their domestic connections restored.
On the occasion, the GM Ahmed announced that a camp office manned by SSGC staff would be set up in the area for at least two days in a week to help the residents pay their bills through easy installments as well as settle their billing metre restoration problems on the spot. The GM said that those consumers who have had their connections disconnected for failure to pay bills or for using gas directly could settle their bills in the bank and produce them before SSGC staff to get their connection restored on the same day.
The CRD team noticed that the metres installed inside the flats were in an extremely bad shape, with some facing decay, due to the absence of hygienic conditions and lack of maintenance. In such situations, they informed the residents that the metre readers faced tremendous problems in reading metres and suggested to the residents association to clean up the metres on a regular basis to ensure proper reading.
