ISLAMABAD: Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Thursday informed National Assembly that accumulative losses of natural gas amount to Rs40 billion annually.
In reply to a calling attention notice the minister mentioned to technical losses, gas theft and losses due to terrorism and requested provincial governments to cooperate with the federal government for overcoming this problem.
He said in total the natural gas worth Rs400 billion remains available in the system and as the losses have been reckoned at 10 percent, it is the matter of Rs40 billion that needs collective efforts to be addressed.
He said the government is fully trying to control theft but in this regard it needs cooperation from province. By now Punjab province has fully cooperated with the federal government with partial cooperation coming from by the KPK government but no cooperation by the Sindh government.
The minister told the House that gas is distributed among the provinces as per constitutional provisions and it is the same distribution mechanism as exercised by the previous government.
The members Abdul Rasheed Godel, Syed Naveed Qamar, Shazia Marri, Saman Sultana Jafferi and Dr Arif Alvi had drawn the attention of the minister towards delay in gas connections to residents of Karachi high rise buildings.
Abbasi responded that not only the gas is being distributed as per the constitution but also clarified that no application in the SNGPL takes more than three months in implementation.
He said the ban to provide gas to residents of high rise buildings was imposed during the previous government due to certain hazards. However, the present government has no objection to provide them gas and matter should be referred to Standing Committee to discuss in detail.
Answering a question, the minister, the gas share of one province has not been diverted to another province. It has only been decided to enhance gas supply to power stations and this power comes to national grid and does not go to a specific province.
"We have decided to enhance supply to power stations keeping within the sectoral allocation," the minister said and pleaded that members refer to constitution repeatedly but in this case also there is need for proper interpretation of the constitution.
Answering another question, the minister said, numbers of meetings have been held and correspondence done to control theft but stealing trend in KPK continued to increase.
He assured the House all out cooperation by the federal government to resolve the gas issue. "We have taken steps, enacted laws and launched campaign against gas pilferage but we need cooperation by the provinces to curb this menace."
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