PESHAWAR: The All Pakistan CNG Association (APCNGA) on Sunday expressed its serious concern over a proposal by Ogra to increase the natural gas tariff by Rs200 to Rs300 per mmbtu and demanded of the government to turn it down.

In a statement issued here, the association’s chairman Ghiyas Abdullah Paracha said if accepted the proposal would devastate the industrial and CNG sectors.

He said that the last three decades did not see as much increase in gas tariff as during the last few months, adding that costly gas would also cause the public transport fare to increase and the overall cost of doing business would also witness an increase. He said that the ultimately sufferers would be the common people.

Ghiyas Paracha said that the mediocre owners of three million cars running on CNG would also feel the pain of increased gas tariff. He noted that the eco-friendly fuel was being encouraged across the globe but it was otherwise in Pakistan.

Gas sector circular debt, he said had reached hundreds of billions of rupees while gas companies had not received almost Rs50 billion from RLNG consumers, which he added, would be shifted to other sectors.

He said frequent closure of CNG stations added to the losses of the government for which the CNG consumers were penalised.

The leader of the CNG sector said the government should immediately issue guidelines for the regulator and gas companies, otherwise, the gas sector would sink further in the circular debt which is already piling up rapidly.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2020