The day is not far when the gas shortage will lead to riots, deaths, paralysis of the city due to strikes, closure of some more small industries and businesses. Any kind of shortage, such as the power and water have thrown up and even shortage of food especially flour and sugar had launched have triggered riots in crippling economy.
Gas shortage is going to become yet another weapon with which to destroy this city. The general belief is that all the shortages affecting Karachi are artificial. Some are manipulated to make quick bucks such as by the owners of sugar mills and wheat hoarders. Some because of inefficiency and mismanagement of internal problems such as the tussle between KESC and the labour union. Some because of poor supply system as in the case of water not flowing through the pipeline but readily available through tanker delivery. You cannot say there is a real shortage of anything but there is a mess in the delivery systems and virtual absence of efforts to find alternative sources.
Take the case of water, why do we not have massive desalination plants? Take the case of power, why is there a delay in using air and wind for power generation? Similarly, in the case of gas supply, why are we not tapping into the existing gas fields in the country? In all these cases you will hear excuses and no solutions or plan put in motion to end the crises. This disinterestedness has created a paranoia in the city that every shortage the city suffers from is deliberate and designed to destroy the economy, livelihood and the very life of the citizens when riots breakout.
The city's huge consumption of gas has resulted from other shortages. First, it was the escalating price of petrol which made people switch to the use of CNG for vehicles by private car owners. Auto rickshaws switched to LPG. This was at first all self-designed and operated solution. But when car manufacturers introduced factory fitted CNG cylinders and, simultaneously, petrol pumps set up CNG pumps the consumption of CNG shot up ten fold if not more. Now the city has buses running on CNG and even autorickshaws with factory fitted CNG cylinders replacing the LPG.
(LPG: liquid petroleum gas. CNG: compressed natural gas).
So now there is gas shortage and the government announced two-day closure of gas pumps from 9.30 am Monday to midnight Tuesday. As a result most CNG-run public transport is off the road on those days leading to commuting problems. Last Monday I wanted to take a rickshaw to go to Boultan Market from the Karachi Press Club. There were several rickshaws parked nearby but none was willing to go. The reason was the traffic jams, which meant wastage of fuel. "If I run out of gas, where will I fill up today?" Asked one rickshawala.
Households as well as hotels and office blocks in the city now depend on gas to run generators. There is fear that the piped gas from Sui will soon be low, plus the unit price of gas is to be raised making yet another convenience an inconvenience. Ever since petrol and diesel became expensive, gas generators operated on by and large. There is no calculation of the extent of increase in Sui Gas consumption.
Bakeries and roti ovens are also gas operated. With the depletion of gas conservation will become more and more severe. At present the turnabout of gas fields has been envisioned through the two gasless days of CNG supply. How that works out I do not understand because everyone simply adjusts to purchasing their supply on the days the CNG is available. It is only public transport which needs to fill up every day that is truly affected at present. But the depletion of gas in the field has caused fear that piped supply of gas will also be conserved. It is not a far fetched idea that gas supply may be stopped for at least a day. Such is the fear voiced by my mohallah bakers and naanbais.
The strange thing is that Sui need not be the only source of gas supply. The country has an estimated 70 trillion cubic feet of untapped gas, but there is no effort to exploit it. The reason given by the government is that most of the unproven fields lie in high-risk areas. Well, so does the Sui field.
And what about the gas pipeline from Iran that will reach the border next year? Will that ease the problem of gas? It will not. Because there is little hope that the pipe within Pakistan will be completed on schedule, again because the pipeline will run through high-risk areas. The picture is bleak as no matter what. Pakistan will depend on imported liquefied gas; which in turn means rise in the price of gas every other day, as they do with imported petroleum.
A patent comment for Karachi's woes is that the rest of the country is suffering shortages in water, power and gas too. Yes, of course, but a shortage in Karachi becomes a hydra headed monster strangling the economy not only of the city but on the whole country.
Karachi must have priority and privileged status in resolving shortage crises. Because of the size of its ever burgeoning population, the size of it trade, commerce and industry and services, there is no other place in the whole country, no other city, where a crises does not get magnified tenfold. It not only leads to economic fall out but affects the stability of the country as a whole. None of our leaders has ever realized that Karachi makes everything tic. They tend to think Karachiites are self-centered in the demand to be given privileged status in the supply of all the amenities. Speaking to journalists at the Karachi Press Club, the newly-appointed Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Wassan said there was no such a thing as urban and rural. The whole of Sindh for him is one block. He probably thought he was expressing a democratic idea that would aid him to bring peace to the city and the rest of the province.
When will rulers realise that the problems of Karachi do not stem from issues of equality and democracy but are set burning into conflagrations when there are shortages such as water, power and now gas. Dread the day when gas riots engulf the city.
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