Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Central Chairman of All Pakistan CNG Association (APCNGA) Ghiyas Abdullah Paracha on Tuesday said that the compressed natural gas sector is at the verge of destruction due to parity between the price of petrol and local gas. Ghiyas Paracha said that the price of gas should have been reduced after decreasing the price of petrol to keep the troubled business of CNG viable.
CNG sector is crumbling due to costly natural gas, unbearable burden of taxes, and indifference of the government which will leave thousands of dealers bankrupt, around four hundred thousand people unemployed while wasting an investment of Rs400 billion, he added. The Central Chairman APCNGA said that there are some five hundred thousand vehicles in the country which cannot be run on the petrol which will be halted resulting in a nightmare for many.
He said that some favourite sectors are addicted to subsidies since long while the burden of their gas subsidies is shifted to the CNG sector which makes the fuel costly. Now the CNG sector is unable to bear the burden of blue-eyed sectors, therefore the government should reduce subsidies to make natural gas economical for the CNG sector, he demanded. Ghiyas Paracha said that gas tariff should be reduced, taxation should be relaxed and GIDC should be abolished to keep CNG stations in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan viable.
