The government came under severe criticism over the gas loadshedding in the country with Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) blamed extreme winter conditions responsible for the outages.
As the meeting of the National Committee on Energy chaired by Imran Khattak started, members of the committee from both treasury and opposition benches stated that despite massive increase in gas prices, the problem of gas loadshedding has been aggravated.
Former commerce minister Khurram Dastgir Khan of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and Noor Alam Khan of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf raised the issue with Khurram Dastgir stated that present government has twice increased gas price - first 114 percent and second 40 percent - and now again it is again going to increase prices by 216 percent but gas is being provided neither to domestic consumers nor to the industry. He claimed there is no gas for domestic sector, and supply of gas to power sector and industry has been curtailed.
Noor Alam Khan also complained that there was no gas in Peshawar this year again and similar situation is being faced by the residents of Warsik. Other members of the committee also lodged their similar complaints.
However, acting Managing Director SNGPL Amir Tufail blamed extreme winter conditions responsible for the gas load shedding and stated that gas consumption has increased due to cold spell as this kind of spell has been noticed after eight years. The consumption of gas has been increased and the companies have to adjust the gas supply to the domestic consumers as well as power sector, in spite of the fact that 11.6% of more gas has been injected in the system. He said that against 266 mmcfd last year, 344 mmcfd gas was injected in the system this December while 470 mmcfd would be injected in the system in January. The committee directed the secretary and concerned officials to address the concerns of the people on priority.
On the issue of provision of new gas connections, Chairperson Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) Uzma Adil stated that in accordance with the petition filed by gas companies, regulator allows them issuance of new connections whatever gas companies demand, adding the regulator wants the companies to follow merit and treat all areas on equal basis.
The acting MD SNGPL said there is pendency of 300,000 to 400,000 and it is increasing every year. The chairperson OGRA said that gas company has sought 300,000 new connections this year which was allowed to it. However, it was decided that SNGPL would move a new petition to OGRA for enhancement of connections.
The committee asked the secretary to address the concerns of elected representatives regarding their development schemes.
The committee directed the ministry to complete the process of shifting the Head Office of SNGPL to Islamabad without any further delay.
The committee was annoyed over the absence of secretary Power Division and officers from the meeting without any justification and decided to refer the matter to the speaker as it is tantamount to the breach of privilege of the parliamentary committee as well as the Parliament.
Those who attended the meeting were Junaid Akber, Malik Anwar Taj, Noor Alam Khan, Shahid Ahmed, Sardar Talib Hassan Nakai, Khurram Dastgir Khan, Chaudhry Muhammad Barjees Tahir, Sardar Muhammad Irfan Dogar, Mian Riaz Hussain Pirzada, Shazia Marri, Zahid Akram Durrani as well as senior officers of the relevant departments.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019
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