SSGC's meters' manufacturing plant to be made functional

The government has decided to make gas meters manufacturing plant of Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL) functional by binding the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) to procure gas meters from it. The SNGPL installs around 3 million imported gas meters worth billion of rupees annually to consumers. The issue of SSGCL's gas metering manufacturing facility was raised in a high level meeting of cabinet committee headed by Prime Minister Imran Khan held last month.

Sources said that a cabinet member had raised concern that faulty gas meters were being imported by SNGPL instead of buying locally manufactured meters from SSGCL.

Earlier, Petroleum Division approached Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) to allow SNGPL to procure gas meters from the manufacturing plant of SSGCL without going into bidding process to rescue plant from losses.

The SSGCL's revenue from its gas meters manufacturing plant stood at Rs 537 million in financial year 2012-13 but it turned into financial loss of Rs 2 million in financial year 2016-17 and Rs 57 million in 2017-18, sources said.

Sources maintained that Petroleum Division approached ECC and sought a waiver of PPRA rules to allow SNGPL to procure locally manufacture gas meters directly from SSGCL.

Spokesman for Petroleum Division was not available for comments despite repeated attempts. The manufacturing facility in the public sector was established with the assistance of M/S Itron France. Both M/S SSGCL and M/S Itron France had signed a license agreement. The plant has meter manufacturing and production capacity of one million meters per annum.

The plant is producing meters with foreign and local industry assistance and has achieved improvements based on international standards and Pakistan Specific requirement of SNGPL to encounter UFG issues related to tampering. In recent past, M/S SSGCL has reported a decline and loss on account of income from its meter manufacturing plant which is attributed to less or no exports of meters and change in policy with respect to direct procurement between SSGCL and SNGPL.