By Sardar Khan Niazi
Without taking into account the miserable conditions of the masses when they are grappling with higher costs of living with fuel and food price hikes and their purchasing power continues to shrink amid an ongoing economic crisis in the country OGRA has permitted gas suppliers to increase prices.
The hike in gas prices is going to affect both households and businesses that are already facing a severe gas crisis in the winter months. It is true that natural gas was available to households at dirt-cheap prices for years; however, it does not mean that gas prices should become unbearable for poor consumers.
The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) has allowed Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) and Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL) to hike their prices by 74.42 percent and 75.35 percent, respectively.
SNGPL will raise its average prescribed gas prices by Rs406.28/mmBtu (Metric Million British Thermal Unit) and SSGCL by Rs499.28/mmBtu. Domestic consumers will suffer the most, with some seeing their rates triple.
The average prescribed gas price for SNGPL consumers has been increased from Rs545.89/mmBtu to Rs952.17/mmBtu and the average prescribed gas price for SSGCL consumers has been increased from Rs662.63/mmBtu to Rs1,161.91/mmBtu.
OGRA has abolished the earlier slabs of gas consumption for different groups of consumers and fixed a uniform rate for all categories including domestic, tandoors (bakers), commercial, general industries, and export-oriented industries.
Winters always deepen gas shortages in Pakistan. This time, even the southern city of Karachi, which does not get as cold as the northern region, is experiencing severe gas load shedding. Many citizens of Karachi complained that there is simply no gas to cook food even at the promised meal times.
The SSGC had earlier announced the availability of gas during three meal times — breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The situation is worsening every year as experts say that local gas production was declining at the rate of 10 percent every year.
The rising international prices and other input costs justify an increase or not, an increase of this magnitude will be crippling for poor and middle-class families.
The unrestricted delivery of utilities has always been an important priority for pro-public governments around the world. Many nations have handed over these businesses to the private sector. They keep an eye on the smooth delivery of the essential needs to the common people.
On the other hand, the governments in third-world states have made these public services profitable businesses for them and often use these needs as a tool to misuse general problems for political advantages and point scoring.
Our motherland has immense set-ups for the delivery of essential utilities including electricity, gas, water, sewerage as well as communication services while hundreds of thousands of men and women are employed with bulky payments and huge motivations but no single department is neither making a profit for the country nor it provides adequate services to the public.
Many bodies like WAPDA, OGDCL, NEPRA, and OGRA remained unsuccessful in ending the scarcity and management issues. Such departments have not reduced the enormous benefits of their employees and have not been able to lessen the departmental deficit. These public departments are persistently adding to the public miseries through their rigid and ill-designed price and taxation strategies on regular basis.
In fact, the service departments need to revamp themselves by overcoming their line losses, pilferages, and misappropriation of resources so these issues neither create hurdles in their operation nor put an excessive burden on customers.
The country also requires exploring indigenous resources and importing liquefied natural gas to meet energy needs. The people who pay charges for utilities should not suffer because of the incompetence and misconduct of public utility departments.
