Staff Reporter
Karachi
The ongoing gas supply crisis has severely gripped the domestic consumers in Sindh province as the demand of the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) has increased with a sudden drop in temperature across Pakistan this winter. Particularly, the supply situation has further worsened in the congested neighbourhoods of the provincial capital of Karachi where the total shortfall surged to about 500 million metric cubic feet a day (MMCFD) with the demand of about 1600 MMCFD a day.
Moreover, CNG stations were being opened for just 12 hours after a massive gap of 146 hours, and subsequently were shut down. This has led to miserable conditions for rickshaw and taxi drivers, and goods-laden wagons which cannot operate without CNG. What has aggravated the crisis is that many households have illegally installed compressors or gas pumps on pipelines to boost gas pressure. The shortfall has affected not only the supply to domestic consumers but also to the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) sector for the past several days.
On Dec. 22, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, while addressing a press conference in Sialkot, stated that the government had directed the relevant authorities to ensure gas supply to households even if it means curbing the supply to CNG stations.
She maintained that there are false claims being perpetuated regarding the hike in gas prices. ‘The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) is merely a regulator which, keeping in mind ground realities, forwards its input to the government. She stated that a continuous wave of winter has gripped the country which is why there has been an increase in the demand for gas. ‘Keeping this in mind, there has been a 12 per cent increase in gas pressure while overall utilisation has increased by almost 2.5% as compared to last year.’
