The All Pakistan CNG Association (APCNGA) has proposed three options to keep the CNG business viable and to provide the much-needed relief to the masses with regards to the ever-increasing CNG rates.
According to an APCNGA statement issued on Wednesday, APCNGA Chairman Ghiyas Paracha said the options had been designed keeping in mind the directives of the Supreme Court, adding that OGRA should accept one of the options to fix the prices immediately.
Talking to reporters, he said, “We are opposed to any upward revision in the prices of CNG but just profit is our right. Majority of the business are run on the basis of 30 percent profit while those with transaction to the tune of billions can operate of reduced rates,” he said.
Paracha said the APCNGA would make the formula part of the OGRA’s public hearing scheduled on November 23 in Lahore. He said OGRA was free to impose prices recommended by auditors provided the APCNGS’s four major reservations were addressed.
Giving details of the reservations, he said the CNG sector should be charged the same price which the other sectors were paying, the auditors show an average sale of the CNG filling stations at 74,000kgs which was more than 51,600kgs, the profit margin should be rationalised and the repressive taxation should be abolished.
He said the options forwarded by the APCNGA were not new but were already being practiced in other sectors.
He said the fertilizer sector was getting gas for Rs 116.27 per mmbtu and paying Rs 100 as gas infrastructure development cess (GIDC) which if introduced in the CNG sector would bring prices down to Rs 48.15 in region 1 and Rs 46.80 in region 2. Giving details of second option, Paracha said the industrial sector was paying Rs 460 per mmbtu and Rs 50 as GIDC which if imposed in the CNG sector will bring down the prices to Rs 69.79 in region 1 and Rs 66.63 in region 2. He said private power producers were getting gas for Rs 460 per mmbtu and paying Rs 100 as GIDC. “Uniform gas rates and taxation will result in CNG price in region one at Rs 43.47 and Rs 70.00 in region 2.”
Paracha said there was nothing new in this formula and similar rates and taxation had already been bring practiced in other sectors, therefore there was no room for anyone to raise any objection.
He said the implementation of the APCNGA formula would not only streamline CNG prices, bring uniformity among all critical sectors of the economy but would also provide relief to the masses.
