KARACHI: The All Pakistan CNG Association (APCNGA) on Sunday said the government should reject the proposal forwarded by OGRA to increase the tariff of natural gas by Rs200 to Rs 300 per mmbtu.
The proposal if accepted will damage the industrial sector, devastate the CNG sector which is already facing many problems and open floodgates of inflation, it said.
During the last 27 years the gas tariff was not hiked as much as increased in some time and yet another increase in gas tariff is on the cards, said Ghiyas Abdullah Paracha, Central Chairman APCNGA.
In a statement issued here today, he said that costly gas will hit transport sectors, public transport fares would be increased, millions of businesses will face a new challenge, the overall cost of doing business will witness an increase, and masses will come under more stress.
Ghiyas Paracha said that the mediocre owners of three million cars running on CNG will also feel the pain of increased gas tariff while air pollution will rise which has already crossed safe limits in many cities.
He noted that economic friendly fuel is being encouraged all across the globe but it’s otherwise in Pakistan and whenever the CNG sector start moving towards stability, it is damaged through subsidies.
Gas sector circular debt has reached to hundreds of billions of rupees while gas companies have not received almost Rs50 billion from RLNG consumers which would be shifted to other sectors, he informed.
He said that frequent closure of CNG sector add to the losses of the government for which the CNG consumers are penalized.
The leader of the CNG sector said that the government should immediately issue guidelines for regulator and gas companies otherwise, the gas sector will sink in the circular debt which is piling up rapidly.