April 14, 2017
President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), President AKIA, Senior Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Friday said business community supports the decision of the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to lift moratorium on new gas connections.
The decision will help masses to get new connections while trigger economic activities across the country therefore it will go down very well with the business community, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the decision will benefit many sectors of the economy including urea, textile, general industry, power sector and CNG.
He said that government has initiated serious efforts to import gas from Iran and Turkmenistan while deal to import LNG from Qatar was also finalised by the incumbent government.
Presently one LNG terminal with capacity of 600 mmcfd is operational while another terminal with the matching capacity will start commercial operations within few months boosting supply of gas to 1200 mmcfd reducing gas crisis substantially.
He informed that ban on new gas connections were imposed in 2011 which resulted in many problems.
The moratorium of gas connection does not any benefit as connections were not provided to industries but line losses continued to increase while undocumented cost of every gas connections jumped to one hundred thousand rupees.
He informed that the tendency of bribery for new gas connections added to the miseries of the masses while the illicit income of gas contractors crossed all the limits.
The latest decision will not only help roll the wheels of economy but also increases the revenue of gas companies, he said.
