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WEEKLY
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| CNG stations warn of strike from 15th |
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Sunday, November 08, 2009
By our correspondent
LAHORE: The All Pakistan CNG Association has threatened to close all 2,300 stations in Punjab and NWFP from November 15 if the government fails to take back its decision of stopping gas supplies for two days a week to CNG outlets.
The association’s Chairman, Gayas Abdullah Paracha, was speaking at a press conference after a general body meeting of the association at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Saturday.
He said the decision on CNG stations’ closure was taken in haste without consulting the stakeholders. Moreover, the closure of outlets on rotational basis in different cities of Punjab would only save 25 million cubic feet per day of gas, which would not resolve the problem of energy shortage.
In fact, he added, “at the moment there is no gas shortfall in the country and if weather remained mild there should be no shortage after November when the government desires to start gas loadshedding of CNG stations.”
Paracha said more sensible alternatives were available to save gas which the government did not consider, adding CNG dealers were prepared to close their stations in extreme cold weather voluntarily whenever required.
He said the stoppage of gas supplies would force two million CNG consumers to shift to petrol which would place an additional burden of $2.1 billion on imports. “Could the country afford this extra drain on foreign exchange?”
He regretted the government and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines were facilitating industries, which had signed a nine-month contract for gas supplies, while penalising CNG stations, which had been guaranteed uninterrupted gas supplies for 12 months by the SNGPL.
He said the association would start a series of protests to give a signal and force the government to take back its decision.
In the first phase, he said, CNG stations from Jhelum to Attock would be closed on November 10 and the association would wait for a positive government response. If the government remained stubborn, he added, all CNG stations in Lahore and Sargodha would be closed for 24 hours on November 12.
Thereafter, he said, if the government did not budge all CNG outlets in the NWFP and Punjab would be closed from November 15. Apologising to the consumers for the inconvenience, he said the government had forced them to take such extreme steps.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
