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ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Resources on Tuesday passed a resolution for bringing the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) under the Petroleum Ministry to make it more accountable.
Speaking at a meeting of the committee with Sardar Talib Hassan Nakai in the chair here at the OGDCL House, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr Asim Hussain said that he was confronting different problems while making efforts for resolving oil and gas issues.
The minister said that one of the hurdles was Ogra’s not being under his control, hindering proper resolution of the issues of sector.
The committee passed a resolution that Ogra should come under the purview of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources so that the latter could properly handle the affairs related to it.
The committee also directed the Secretary Petroleum to look into grievances of the employees of Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (OGDCL) regarding pension and distribution of company shares.
Regarding the gas crisis, Dr Asim said that the ministry was focussing on the import of LNG on open tender basis which would help overcome the problem of gas shortage especially in Punjab.
He said the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources had implemented a new LPG policy which was based on the principle of parity of price for local and imported commodity.
He said the policy had taken away the market manipulation power of local LPG mafia and the ultimate benefit of this price parity would go to general public.
He said the government was committed to providing energy to every citizen of the country and SSGCL and SNGPL would provide LPG cylinders even free of cost to those who could not get gas connections due to the gas shortage.
However, the minister said the gas shortage would continue for two years and the domestic sector would be provided LPG to ease the crisis.
He said the rising trend in dollar value could also jack up price of petroleum products in the country which would further burden the CNG.
The minister said that 55 per cent difference between the prices of CNG and petrol would be ensured as per commitment to provide relief to the poor masses.
He said he would present a gas theft draft bill in the next parliament session, enshrining jail punishment, which would be a deterrent for those CNG station’ owners who violated gas loadshedding.
The minister also said that the ministry would give $2 bonanza per barrel to that company which would explore new first and second well in the sea under the new petroleum policy.—APP
