Gas bills

This refers to the editorial ‘Inflated bills’ (February 21). There is a lot of hue and cry across the country on highly inflated gas bills. The reason for this unprecedented increase is the government’s mismanagement which has rightly led to this uproar. By creating a seven-slab tariff system in place of the previous three-slab system, the government has actually raised the tariff by 100 and 200 percent. The government has not spared even the lowest strata of society from these unaffordable prices. In the previous system, the lowest slab was 1 Hm3 (tariff Rs110), however in the existing system, the lowest slab starts from 0.5 Hm3 (tariff Rs121). The Slab 7 tariff is over Rs1,500 as compared to Rs600 in the previous system. The compressibility factor is not something new as it was being applied earlier too.

It can be safely assumed that the government raised the tariffs under IMF pressure to obtain the loan. This state of affairs could have been avoided, had the government gone to the IMF right in the beginning for the inevitable loan. Unfortunately, the IMF wants the tariffs to be raised further. The government needs to be mindful about the paying capacity of middle, lower middle and lowest classes while raising utilities tariff.

Air Cdre (r) Mohammad Yaqoob Khan

Rawalpindi