Thaindian News

Islamabad, June 9 (IANS) The Pakistan government must take urgent steps to deal with the petrol shortage in the country, a Pakistani paper said Thursday, urging it to rein in the petroleum companies, which were “fleecing the people”, and urgently search for domestic oil and gas reserves.

“In view of the marked shortage of petrol in Lahore and most parts of Punjab province, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has directed the petroleum companies to arrange and distribute 50,000 tonnes of petrol on an urgent basis. In Lahore, most of the petrol pumps are shut, and the shortage of petrol, coupled with shortages of gas and electricity, has hit all people hard,” said an editorial in the Urdu daily Jang.

Slamming the petroleum companies for being driven only by profits, the editorial said that every time international oil prices went up, these companies “ignored the exchange rate between the dollar and the rupee to arbitrarily raise the prices of fuel,” while the benefits of lower prices are never passed on to the consumers.

Transporters also seize the opportunity to raise fares and freight rates, further adding to the people’s problems, it said, adding: “The government’s assurances of providing relief to the people have proven hollow.”

It attributed the problem to absence of people’s and government representatives on the advisory committees of the petroleum companies. “Consumer and government representatives have not been given representation on the advisory committees of the companies, which are thus only driven by the motives of profit-making.”

Urging the government to intervene more forcefully in the problem to ameliorate the problems of the people, the editorial also slammed it for not searching for domestic sources of energy with urgency.

“The coal reserves in the Thar Desert have been ignored and the government had never taken any serious steps to produce electricity or gas out of it, otherwise a lot of the current problems would have been avoided. Driven by profit only, the petroleum companies have also never taken any serious steps to locate domestic reserves.”

“These measures are most necessary if Pakistan has to come out of this crisis and the sufferings of the people have to be ended. There is no other way out,” it said.