Last week, there were protests in Balochistan concerning the unlawful trade of Iranian oil. Protesters were demonstrating over the ban on smuggled oil trade. The new regulations resulted in job losses for thousands of locals who were associated with smuggling oil. Earlier in November, transporters in Lasbela had staged protests on the Quetta-Karachi highway. Smuggling of the Iranian oil in huge quantities, which has been going on for many years, is a lucrative business. The amount of diesel that is being smuggled from Iran was evident in December 2019, where trucks carrying 46,250 litres of smuggled oil were captured. Likewise, on February 1, 2019 the government had seized many vehicles attempting to smuggle about 60,000 litres of Iranian diesel.
According to reports, about 20,000 litres of Iranian diesel, worth millions of rupees, is being smuggled every day to Hub in Lasbela District that shares a border with Karachi. The smuggling of diesel and petrol from Iran may be inflicting an annual loss of around Rs10 billion to the national economy.
Hussain Siddiqui
Islamabad
