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| Industry seeks uninterrupted gas supply |
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Thursday, October 29, 2009
By Gohar Ali Khan
Business leaders urged the government to ensure supply of all inputs including gas and electricity with a view to keeping the wheels of industry moving while voicing grave concern over abrupt suspension of gas supplies to the industry in Sindh and Punjab in upcoming months.
Representatives of industry maintain that suspension of gas supply would reduce exports and 2.4 million workers would be rendered unemployed. Gas shortage would hit the industry’s business worth $1.5bn per month.
The CNG filling stations asked the government to control gas wastage caused in winter season due to domestic and commercial gas appliances instead of squeezing supplies, as use of geysers and room heaters pushes up domestic consumption more than double to over 40pc in winter.
Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) was introduced in 1994 as an environment-friendly fuel that is now 40pc cheaper than petrol against over 50pc in 1994. Perhaps the policymakers did not think about gas shortage in future. And currently 3,000 CNG stations are operative in the country and thousands of people are associated with this new industry.
There are 2.5 million vehicles running on CNG that have reduced pollution to some extent in main cities. The CNG-fitted vehicles use 6 per cent of total gas consumed in the country; the power sector 33.5pc; the industry 23.8pc; domestic consumers 18.10pc and fertilizer 15.60pc.
Government should cut the gas supplies to any CNG stations found involved in gas theft instead of resuming gas supplies after penalizing them and the government should ban poorly manufactured gas appliances.
The SITE Association of Industry Chairman Salim Parekh criticised the Sui Southern Gas Company for seeking a 26 per cent increase in gas tariff, earlier the SSGC had asked the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority to increase gas tariff by nine per cent from July 1 2009 and a further 17 per cent from January 1 2010.
The industry is facing a number of problems including falling exports, cost of doing business, cost of manufacturing, rising tide of factory closures, power crisis, and now gas shortage.
Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Abdul Majid Haji Muhammad lambasted proposed 26 proposed hike in gas tariff.
Both the SSGC and SNGPL have tried to justify the proposed gas tariff because of the high cost of heating fuel, low returns on gas transmission and distribution network of more than 30,000 kilometres, free gas supply worth Rs2.5 billion to remote areas of Sindh and Balochistan.
All educational institutions, schools, colleges and universities, were closed due to the security concern following the twin blasts at the International Islamabad University Campus in Islamabad on Tuesday. The government considers educational institutions vulnerable to attacks.
There is an uncertainty in all markets, bazaars, hotels and restaurants witnessed thin presence of buyers, visitors/guests and gourmets respectively in the wake of deteriorating security situation.
Foreign investors have shelved their business commitments in Pakistan in view of the current wave of violence.
Business people said there are many facets impeding business consisting of pressure of courts on pricing, government borrowings from banks, mounting pressure on currency, aggravating energy crisis.
Sugar again remained in the limelight for short supply in official and private outlets amid reports that stockists withdraw stocks from open markets after refusing to sell the sweetener at the officially fixed price of Rs40 per kg.
Market analyst said the Sindh government carried out crackdown on wholesalers and retailers in markets instead of calling out on sugar barons for a sudden shortage of the product. While the Punjab government has successfully controlled price hike in the commodity to a large extent after crackdown on hoarders and sugar millers.
PTA has launched the SIM-verification campaign and advised mobile phone users to get their records rectified. The 175,000 complainants reportedly visited various cellphone companies to clarify their position about bogus connections, registered to them deliberately or inadvertently and 400,000 SIMs so far have been identified as ‘illegal or irregular’ and they are not in the complainants’ names
Franchises that issue SIMs against CNIC copies fomented this problem because they failed to maintain the correct data of the subscribers.
goharali.khan@thenews.com.pk
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ISSN 1563-9479 
