As many as 450 CNG stations in provincial metropolis, Sargodha, Gujrawala, Okara, and Sahiwal will remain closed till 12 pm today to protest against gas load-management plan of the government during winter and proposed raise in gas tariff from next year. Ghiyas Abdullah Paracha Chairman All Pakistan CNG Association told business Recorder on Wednesday.
He told this scribe while telephonic conversation that CNG stations in Multan and Bahawalpur would observe a strike on November 13 (tomorrow). In response to a question he rejected the impression that the association was divided on using the option of strike and said that all the 450 CNG stations in Lahore region would join the strike call for November 12.
He claimed that the strike call announced by the association for November 10 has proved successful as 691 CNG stations joined it out of total 697 CNG stations in Rawalpindi, Islamabad region. Six CNG stations owned by petroleum companies had not joined the strike, he added.
He said that some federal government official belonging to Ministry of petroleum and Natural Resources had contacted to the Association and assured to solve the problems till Friday (tomorrow). The chairman said that the CNG association wants the government to implement CNG policy 1994 and avoid withdrawing the incentive provided to the CNG-industry for promoting locally produced environment-friendly fuel.
"In CNG policy 1994 it is clearly stated that CNG prices would be fixed at 55 percent of petrol price but later it was reduced to 50 percent. Now the government is poised to remove the incentive", he said. There are millions of vehicles all over Pakistan that uses CNG fuel.