How to tackle natural gas conundrums???

Byline: Khalil Ahmed

One needs to comprehend the rationale behind the ongoing gas crisis across the country. The recent shortfall during the chilly weather left millions of users bewildered since tall claims have been made from time to time vis-a-vis discovery, prudent management and import of LNG to tackle the long-standing issue of the energy in the country. It is eventually the industry, which is at the loser's end. Various reasons have been given regarding the shortfall of gas, however, one of the most frequent reasons is the theft of gas, which does not seems to be restrained any way, perhaps at the behest of some unknown creatures.

A million rather a billion dollar question is who should be given the priority for the availability of gas: domestic users, zero-rated export industry, the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) sector, manufacturing industry, power generation sector, fertilizer sector etc. One needs to fathom that priority is given by the relevant authorities, however, the issues remain outstanding as usual. The sufferers experience frequent electricity breakdowns as well as acute gas load-shedding resulting in poor performance at almost all levels resulting in deceleration in the exports of the country. And the ramification of this is the weak rudderless economy.

As regards decline in exports, there have been calls by the export-oriented manufacturing sector regarding non-availability of gas. It was suggested that gas supply may be suspended to the CNG sector for a couple of months to salvage exports sector. Prior to the Federal Budget for the current fiscal, the government abolished sales tax zero-rating regime for textile, leather, carpets, sports goods and surgical goods imposing 17% sales tax on items covered under SRO 1125(I)/2011. This jolted the export-oriented sectors since the amount to be collected was in the vicinity of Rs90 billion. Besides, the concerns of non-availability of gas.

The textile sector's export share is around US $13 billion. The more the availability of the gas, the more the production leading to more exports. The dwindling exports could render hundreds of thousands of people jobless at the cost of dismal economic outlook.

Simultaneously, the closure of CNG station has multiple losses right from the investors to the end-users such as the masses who already have barely enough to keep body and soul together.

Economy of Pakistan is not robust enough to bear the burgeoning import of costly oil to the...

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