CNG stations to remain shut till Jan 31

MANSEHRA: The Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) stations, initially closed for four days, will now remain shut until January 31.“The provincial government has extended the closure of CNG stations in Hazara and the rest of the province until the end of this month,” Khalid Latif, the divisional president of the CNG Owners Association in Hazara, told reporters.

He said that the district administrations in Mansehra, Abbottabad and Haripur had notified the closure of CNG stations across the division until January 19 after orders from the commissioner of Hazara division earlier this month. “We were expected to resume operations on Monday, but the situation has now changed completely and our association will take up this issue in its meetings in the coming days,” said Latif.

Additional Secretary of the Home and Tribal Affairs Department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mohammad Abid Majeed issued an official order on Sunday, citing low gas pressure across the province due to peak winter demand by domestic consumers. “We have received a request from Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited through the Ministry of Petroleum for the closure of CNG stations in the province,” the order stated. “I, the additional chief secretary of the Home Department, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in the exercise of the powers conferred under Section 144 of the CrPC, hereby impose a ban on the operation of CNG pumps from January 20 to January 31 across the province,” the order notified.

The order further mentioned that the Peshawar High Court, in its judgment issued last January, upheld the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s decision to close CNG station operations for a month in the larger interest of domestic consumers, stating it was purely a policy matter.