Forced closure of gas: SNGPL officials warned of severe reaction

Textile exporters have decided to run their factories on gas in a desperate bid to meet the foreign buyer's orders. Unanimous decision to this effect was taken in a meeting of Pakistan Textile Exporters Association here on Monday night. The local authorities including General Manager SNGPL, District Co-ordination Officer and CPO had been informed about the decision.
Briefing the newsmen here on Tuesday, Rana Arif Tauseef lashed out the gas authorities and warned that the gas officials visiting their factories for forced closure of gas would have to face the aggravation of the workers. Jobless workers were very much perturbed and requesting their respective factory owners to give them a free hand, he said and added, "We are patriotic Pakistanis and are paying salaries to the workers in spite of the fact that there are no operational activities due to non-availability of gas."
Rana Arif said that industrialists were facing severe financial crunch as they had to pay high mark up of bank loans for full period of one year whereas factories were working for only 120 days a year due to gas crisis. He further said that gas officials were pulling out the pins of industrial gas connections on Monday, which was highly condemnable. We would not tolerate such high handedness and if anybody tried to disconnect the gas connection, he would have to face direct resistance and befitting response of the workers.
He also requested district administration and police to stop gas authorities as their interference would deteriorate law and order situation and cause unrest. Participants of the meeting were informed that the gas crisis had been created due to policies of the government.
Elaborating, he said that from 1964 to 2007 only 41000 kilometers gas pipeline was laid but from 2008 to 2011 the length of laid pipeline was doubled to 82000 kilometers without injecting new gas. More over thousands of illegal gas connections were allowed by the gas companies in violation of the rules and regulations. He said that with Rs 65 billion expenditure on pipelines, gas could have been imported and supplied free to BISP and there would have been no shortage.