The natural gas shortage has hit the country badly, and Federal Petroleum Minister Dr Asim Hussain told the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Petroleum and National Resources on Thursday, that CNG stations will have to be closed in January. This comes parallel with the latest round of gas price increases, due to kick in on January 1. This is serving to conceal the fact that that for the last several months, the Punjab has been familiar with the weekly CNG shutdown that consumers in Sindh have only now begun to face. The shutdown of factories in Faisalabad has led to it becoming the centre of the gas shortage protests. It should be noted that elsewhere, the shortage of gas means that people do not get home-cooking, but in Faisalabad, it means that factories do not run, and thus people do not work, do not get salaries, and there is no question of cooking, because there is no money to buy food.
The situation is becoming parlous, not so much because of the shortages, as because of the discrimination that is being meted out to Punjab, merely because it has elected a different party to power in the province than holds it in the Centre. It seems to be a case of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face, because the shutting down of industry in Faisalabad means there is an increased difficulty in meeting export orders. Pakistan depends on its textile industry to provide it the foreign exchange to buy both food and fuel, both essentials it cannot do without. Thus, any cutting down of the gas supply means reducing Pakistan’s ability to survive in the world. Apart from the inherent unfairness of any discrimination, the ability of Pakistan to survive has become all the more crucial at this juncture when it is beset by so many external threats. The unfair treatment of one province, will ultimately be bad for all of them.
The government must do what is needed to get out of the hole it has got itself into. Not only must it expedite work on the pipeline for gas with Iran, it must also further exploration of those reserves that have already been identified within Pakistan. All this must be done quickly, for otherwise gas shortages will only worsen.