Amid growing petrol crisis and low supplies, petrol pumps mostly exhausted its reserve stock, causing great deal of difficulties to motorists, as huge queue of vehicles seen at petrol refilling stations in provincial metropolis Peshawar and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa here on Monday.
The impeding shortage of petrol in Punjab, has been spreading over other parts of the country, including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as most of stations there, are witnessing close due exhausting their reserve stock, after stopping Punjab in its tracks. The prevailing fuel shortage has started dousing KP, causing problems for commuters, owing to starting drying up of most of petrol pumps its stock Monday evening.
Staffers at some of the petrol stations across the provincial capital began saving their stock to avoid a complete drying up of reserves. Although most filling stations have diesel in stock, most of them have run short of super petrol lately. Transporters, while taking advantage of the situations, started overcharging commuters with high fares at inter-district and local route in provincial capital. According to commuters, the transporters increased fares up 30 to 40 percent at inter-districts and local routes. Transporters and passengers were seen exchanging harsh words and arguments, against the overcharging artificial fares.
Most of pumps were not supplied fuel for last two to three days, depending on its reserve stock, which has been vanished in Peshawar, told a manager of private petrol pump to this scribe. He said Petrol is not being supplied as per schedule and supplies are not entertaining new orders. He said "We have instructions from the manager not to give any car owner fuel exceeding Rs 500, and Rs 100 to motorbike" said a worker employee at a private company's petrol pump located on Saddar road. He added workers have also been instructed by the management to only give motorcyclists fuel worth Rs 100. "This is because we are short of supply and the whole country is facing the same problem. So, to avoid a complete exhaustion of stocks, we are running our station on this formula," said the pump worker, refusing to share his name. According to All Pakistan Oil Tankers Owners Association (APOTOA), the apex body of fuel transporters across the country, 60% of fuel supply has halted because of a shortage of fuel provision from the state-run Pakistan State Oil (PSO).
APOTOA Provincial president Haji Muhammad Ayub said that KP needs at least 1.2 million litres daily to meet its fuel demand, but due to the petrol crisis, supply has reduced twofold in the past few days. "Normally, around 700 oil tankers carrying fuel for the country leave from Karachi daily, but due to the shortage hardly 200-250 vehicles are leaving these days," said Israr Shinwari, the spokesperson for APOTOA. Shinwari requested the government to take the matter seriously or the shortage could engulf the entire country, making it more difficult to overcome.
Sarhad Petroleum Cartage and Dealers Association General Secretary for KP Khalid Khan also admitted that the province has been gripped by the ongoing crisis. But he claimed the shortage will be over in a day or two as PSO supplied fuel on Sunday to control the situation.
Khan said the provincial capital's daily consumption is around 750,000 litres and PSO, the main fuel supplier, provided 600,000 litres on Saturday and 320,000 litres on Sunday. "We hope that the crisis will be controlled in two days," he said. "Due to the decrease in petrol prices, its demand in the province has increased; this added to the crisis as well." According to Khan, 90% of transport vehicles are operating on CNG and it is available throughout the week which is why KP was not affected much by the ongoing fuel shortage. Khan added petrol pumps in remote areas of KP have not received fuel supply yet but the major petrol pumps in Peshawar have.
Comments
Comments are closed.