Long queues of vehicles were witnessed on Saturday and Sunday at the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) stations that were selling gas, while most of the stations remained closed due to the strike being observed by the CNG station owners, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Majority of CNG stations across Lahore remained closed on Sunday declaring that they were no longer making money following an earlier Supreme Court order to cut the price of the gas fuel. Few filling stations were open where long queues of vehicles were witnessed.
People had been facing severe difficulties due to the extended closure of CNG stations in the provincial metropolis. Commuters had to suffer as they were denied the relatively cheaper fuel by gas stations. Only a few CNG stations remained operational in the metropolitan during the last two days.
The prevailing situation had not only been disturbing daily life of the citizens for the last two months, but was also proving problematic for office going people.
Meanwhile, the CNG association is on strike due to differences with Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) over the pricing formula.
People while expressing their grief said that CNG mafia had earned lot of money and still they were not ready to give relief to the public.
A car driver Hassan Tahir said, “I have been standing for four hours and there is no gas available in majority of stations and due to load shedding we have to stand in the queues for long time”
Another driver Fazal Mehmood while standing in a queue outside a CNG station said, “The weekend is meant to be spent with the family, but from the last month we are spending our quality time standing in lines outside CNG stations. The whole plan is created by the government and only we have to suffer.”
On the other hand, the owners of CNG stations argued that it was not viable for them to sell the CNG at a price fixed by the OGRA as it was causing huge financial losses to them.
A CNG station owner said, “We are paying Rs 18 per kilogram from our own pocket. If we open the station, we can’t even collect the gross amount. Therefore, if we don’t open, we are still at loss and our electricity tariff also doubles during the peak hours.”
He added that the Supreme Court had ordered the OGRA to reconfigure the “Cost Operate” and “Profit” rates as the court had suspended these costs from the CNG prices, but the government had failed to evaluate the rate. If the government really wanted to provide CNG to the consumers, it would be possible to sell the fuel at a much lower price than the present price. He further said that the government was discriminating against the CNG sector because it was giving them low profits, whereas other gas using establishments like the industries of fertilizer, textile and power generation plants were returning back huge profits.
