Commuters brave 48-hour shutdown of CNG stations

Karachi
Commuters in the city faced a lot of hardship on Saturday as the Sui Southern Gas Company announced late Friday evening to extend closures of CNG stations across the province for another 24 hours.
All CNG stations in Sindh had already been closed on Friday and private and commercial vehicles, which had last bought fuel on Thursday, were unable to drive on empty gas cylinders.
Most public buses, which have also converted on CNG from diesel fuel, also remained off roads.
Meanwhile, owing to processions in connection with Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi to be celebrated on Sunday, traffic routes had also been diverted by the local administration and Sindh police, leading the taxis and rickshaw drivers to take advantage of the situation and mint hundreds of rupees for short distance.
The SSGC on Friday circulated a message stating that due to a technical fault in Kadenwari gas field, SSGC supply had been curtailed by almost 50 percent mmcf (million metric cubic feet) gas on daily basis. To handle the situation, said the message, the SSGC had decided to close all CNG stations across the province from 8am on Saturday till 8am on Sunday for another 24 hours.
This was the fourth shutdown of CNG stations in a single week in Sindh and since the arrival of winter, the SSGC has been observing at least four breaks in supply of CNG to fuel stations per week.
The affected travellers have blamed the poor management of SSGC which they claim has been creating problems for commuters and demanded government intervention to investigate why gas fields have been facing technical problems every coming week.
“This is not the first time the SSGC has closed CNG stations on emergency basis. This has been happening for the past few years every winter,” said a commuter Mohammad Hanif while talking to The News. "I don’t believe that the closures are taking place due to a technical fault. But, the company uses such lame excuse and thinks that people trusts them. Keeping CNG stations closed for three or four days in a week on the pretext of technical faults or low gas pressure from gas fields are just tactics of attempting to mislead the masses.”
According to Mukhtar Ahmed, the price difference between petrol and CNG has now decreased greatly, but, CNG-powered vehicles give a lot more mileage. This is why people still prefer CNG as fuel but they face a lot of problems due to the frequent closures.
Another affectee, Kiran Abbas, remarked that the previous schedule for CNG closure (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday) had been better than the current timetable. Since the SSGC used to shutdown gas supply to CNG stations for four days, Sundays were went to waste because as vehicles waited in line to get fuel there was little pressure to fill their tanks with.
Meanwhile, the chairman of All Pakistan CNG Association in Sindh, Shabbir Sulemanjee, said his with other organisations, including a transport organisation of the province, had launched a protest against the SSGC for conducting three to four CNG shutdowns in a week.
He said since the early 2014, he had been discussing the issue with the federal petroleum minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and has asked him to ensure the provision of uninterrupted gas supply to Sindh. But, he said, so far all efforts had gone in vain.
He said despite the fact that 70 percent gas of the country is produced by Sindh, it faces three to four-day closures of CNG stations when the percentage of usage is only around 35 percent.
“Supply in Sindh is claimed to have improved since the addition of newly-found reserves in Naimat and Zargoon gas fields but we don’t even get enough to run our businesses smoothly,” he said.
"We demanded formation of an independent committee comprising stakeholders from Sindh and senior officials of the petroleum ministry and SSGC managing director to resolve the issue.”
Sulemanjee also asked the SSGC to clarify why repeated technical faults or low gas pressures occurred from gas fields.
In case, the government authorities failed to address the matter, he said, all stakeholders will observe their legal and fundamental rights to take appropriate measures to peacefully protest against this injustice at all suitable forums. To date, we have not seen government interest in solving the prevailing issue, he said.