Three days of weekly closure of compressed natural gas( CNG )stations for gas load management and the strike by CNG station owners on pricing issues have forced vehicle owners to reconvert their vehicles to imported petrol, diesel and LGP to keep them operative.
The closure of compressed natural gas (CNG) stations is creating a lot of problems for vehicle owners as the majority of vehicles running on gas no longer operate on petrol or diesel. The owners of vehicles are fed up with waiting in long queues to get gas and now they have restarted converting their vehicles to petrol and diesel, which ultimately increases the import bill of government.
A motor mechanic said that before people did not reconvert their vehicles from gas to petrol, diesel or LGP a few weeks ago and now everyday three to four people either ask about the cost of reconverting or want to convert. He said that the corroborators of vehicles running on gas become defective and they can not be switched to petrol of diesel at once. The corroborators either need to be replaced with a new one or repaired. The corroborators used with gas for a long time can not be repaired and the only alternative is to replace them claimed the motor mechanics.
They also said that different cars and makes of cars have different systems of fuel operating and corroborators are in short in the market with the increasing demand. The price of corroborators has also gone up in the market and Kabari markets. Corroborators which were available for Rs 3000 in the Kabari market a few weeks ago are now Rs 7000. New corroborators are very expensive.
Transport owners operating their vehicles to schools, colleges and offices have started pressing their clients to increase charges on the pretext that petrol and diesel are much more expensive than CNG. Shifting the vehicles from CNG to LPG was not possible as LPG is a costly fuel as its present price in Lahore has reached Rs 145 per kg, Rs 160 in Karachi and Rs 200 per kg in Gilgit. Uncertainty also exists that with the change of government, the policy could be changed.
According to the CNG Association, investors have made more than Rs 170 billion investment in the CNG sector, including Rs 91 billion in CNG stations and Rs 61 billion by vehicle owners. Besides, Rs 20 billion investment is in the pipeline. The government has adopted a policy of discouraging the use of CNG by closing CNG stations for three days in a week to save gas after promoting it for ten years as an environment-friendly fuel.
"With the LPG price of Rs 160 per kilogram in Karachi, asking the public to use it in vehicle is not possible until they bring the price down to around Rs 50 per kilogram, which is only possible by increasing local production and withdrawing GST imported LPG," said LPG dealers.
The CNG industry was set up in 1997 in Pakistan. It saw a massive boom due to high petroleum prices during the past decade and 3.5 million commercial and private vehicles were converted to CNG. But Pakistan started experiencing gas shortfall in 2007, which worsened in the following years, forcing the government to put a cap on the CNG industry.
Moreover, environmental experts have also raised their voice against the use of petrol, diesel and LPG in vehicles, saying that commercially available LPG is currently derived from fossil fuels and it releases carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas, that contributes to global warming.