According to a Business Recorder news item “PSM to get Rs1.26bn to boot the bill for gas” carried by the newspaper yesterday, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet approved release of funds amounting to Rs 1.258 billion to the Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) for payment of gas supply bills to the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC).

Ironically, this news item sounds like a joke but it’s a fact. It was in June 2015 that production at the mills came to a halt when SSGC stopped supplying gas to the country’s mega industrial unit due to overdue payment.

It was during that year the PSM failed to get past even 30 percent production capacity. Since then it’s nothing but a mega white elephant, causing a huge burden on the national exchequer or the country’s economy.

Successive governments have failed to adopt any realistic or market-oriented strategy to clear the mess mainly due to political reasons or political expediency. PSM, in my view, is nothing but a possession that is absolutely useless unless it begins to function on sheer commercial basis.

Shahid Mirza (Karachi)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022