a Parchi, a piece of paper, which he could not turn down.
Usman Ali, a resident of Model Town, said he stood in a line for getting petrol for over four hours and when was about to fill his car, a police van came and some policemen coming out of it with cans and the pump staff filled their cans. “When people objected the situation, the petrol pump staff stopped giving petrol to them,” he alleged.
He demanded the government end these VIP deliveries of petrol besides taking serious action against the black marketers.
Taking advantage of the miseries of general public, especially the commuters, majority of rickshaw drivers started demanding exorbitant fares without any fear of being caught and checked.
It is the city district government to check price hike, but Lahore DCO, his team and other City District Government Lahore employees were found absent from the city roads instead of relieving hundreds of thousands of affected citizens.
Though shortage of petrol didn’t affect majority of rickshaws as most of them are using LPG as fuel, which is easily available in the city at the rate of Rs 120 per kilogram.
A rickshaw driver was charging Rs 200 to Rs 300 for a distance of 1 to 3-km while for extend destinations the drivers are demanding Rs 700 to Rs 800. In normal circumstances, they charge Rs 70 to Rs 100 for 1 to 3-km and Rs 300 to Rs 400 for more than the distance.
Ms Ahsan, a resident of Gulshan-e-Ravi, said she paid Rs 250 to a rickshaw for going to Samanabad Morr from Moon Market Gulshan-e-Ravi. She said in normal days rickshaws charged Rs 70 for this destination.
The woman and hundreds of other commuters questioned who are responsible for this overcharging?
A CDGL’s spokesman denied that the CDGL officials are arranging petrol for VIPs and said the City District Government Lahore appointed staff on 286 petrol pumps in the city to ensure supply of petrol to citizens. He said a control room has also been established at the DCO office to coordinate and monitor supply of petrol.
He said panic buying is behind long queues of petrol. He said today 12 lakh litres of petrol have been supplied to 104 petrol pumps of PSO while rest is being supplied to other companies.
Answering a question about black marketing of petrol, he said the CDGL has launched a crackdown and arrested two people for selling petrol at Yadgar Chowk. He, however, failed to answer how many officials are suspended on this account because black marketing of petrol has been going on for the past three four days. On the question of overcharging by rickshaws in the city, the CDGL spokesman said this didn’t come under the preview of CDGL. The News tried to contact All Pakistan Rickshaw Union president Majeed Ghori, but he didn’t attend the call.