Gas loadshedding: MPs urged not to dub the issue as discrimination

Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Syed Naveed Qamar Tuesday urged the parliamentarians not to dub the issue of gas load shedding as discrimination with any province and assured that the domestic consumers would not face massive load shedding from next month.
"The fertiliser sector has almost been closed and the remaining units have been asked to go for a shutdown within next few days," Naveed Qamar told National Assembly in response to calling attention notices by several members expressing concerns over worsening situation of gas supply for the domestic sector.
The PML-N once again voiced its concerns over the severe load shedding in Punjab with the question as to why the province was not being given its due share of gas. Earlier, Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif had termed the closure of gas for industries as a 'conspiracy' against Punjab.
According to the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry the suspension has already caused the closure of over 1,300 industrial units and that around 40 percent of industrial units in Punjab run on gas, which could mean no production by almost half of the industry if regular supply of gas is not resumed.
Dispelling the impression of any targeted move of suspending the supply of gas to provinces, the minister said the supply-demand gap of gas is the only reason behind the load shedding and nothing else. The government had adopted a uniform policy throughout the country, and there was not any point of cutting gas supply to any particular province. The whole country is ours; the whole industry is ours and it is our responsibility to run it efficiently, he added.
However, the minister did acknowledge the fact that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was not facing any load shedding since Peshawar High Court had barred the government from doing so. He said that from January the situation would improve as we have asked the fertiliser sector to go for a shut down for next one and half month.
In response to the question raised by Raja Asad of PML-N that the government was not making any effort to bridge the gap of gas shortage with particular reference to no progress in Pakistan-Iran and Pakistan-Turkmenistan gas projects, the Minister said that the credit of having signed a pact with Iran goes to this government. By March, the sale purchase agreement would also be done, however, he said such projects take time in materialisation.