It is indeed heartening that CNG buses are being introduced in Islamabad, the beautiful. The government is promoting CNG in the transport sector as an alternate fuel, and these efforts are bearing fruits.
Over 300,000 vehicles were converted on CNG by March last year, and now local car assemblers are supplying factory-fitted vehicles. CNG buses are already in operation in Karachi and Lahore as well.
More than 1052 licences were issued for installation of CNG stations in the country, out of which almost 50 percent are operative.
The results apparently are encouraging. But are the authorities aware of the hardships being faced by the consumers on account of lack of related development infrastructure?
The fact is that the average production of natural gas during 2002-2003 was 2,648 million cubic feet per day that is 5% increase over 2001-2002.
This is much below the level of increased consumption of natural gas in the country, which has risen about 20% during last year, and the demand continues to grow in the commercial and industrial sector.
Gas available from the new fields will not be available to this sector, as it has been reserved only for utilisation as a replacement of furnace oil in power plants.
Again, the existing pipelines of the utility companies are unable to cope with the increased load, resulting in practically gas load-shedding in cities of Lahore, Peshawar and Islamabad, particularly in winter also because of low pressure.
There seems to be some rationale in advising the government to review its policy of promoting the use of CNG without developing related infrastructure simultaneously.
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