After last night’s petrol price increase, an oil crisis is now looming around the country. The oil transporters have announced a “peaceful protest” for an indefinite period. They want the government to increase the fares of oil transportation.
The oil transporters say they will sit outside the headquarters of an oil marketing company. “Our 40,000 members are part of the protest. If the government fails to accept our demands within a week of protest, then we will give a call for a wheel-jam strike”, said All Pakistan Oil Tankers Owners Association (APOTOA) spokesman Israr Ahmed Shinwari.
Demands of Oil Transporters
Apparently, there was an agreement between the truck owners and the oil marketing company that they would revise the oil transportation fares with the new petrol prices in Pakistan. However, the company violated the agreement and made no changes in the said rates.
“We will call off the protest only after the government accepts our demands and increases fares of fuel transportation that have remained unchanged since 2011”, said Shinwari.
Another conflict that the Oil Tankers Owners Association has with the government is the fitness certificate fee for trucks. The oil marketing company is charging Rs. 100,000 to 200,000 for each certificate, and they want the government to bring the charges down.
Including the above two, APOTOA has a list of 20 demands from the government. So far, no formal contact has been made from the officials. If the government does not deal with the situation and the oil transporters go on a wheel-jam strike, the country will have an oil crisis. No oil trucks and tankers will supply petroleum products from seaports to fuel stations. And we will have a petrol shortage across the country.
Let’s hope the situation gets settled without any severe consequences. If not, there will be more things to worry about than we already have.
One one hand they expect the oil marketing company to cut out the charges for services that the company is offering on the second side transporters want their services charges increased. Wow what a display of etiquette. No wonder that government is considering to increase age restriction for nikkah, such thoughts are expected from a child growing unsupervised. Shame on them.
Ideally the price should be high as up to Rs250/liter to account for:
1. Lesser traffic and pollution
2. Lesser buying means low pressure on import bill
3. People will get healthier when they start using their legs instead of motorcycles
4. Lesser burden on roads. Means low maintenance cost
5. People using public transport, means that employment will increase in the transport sector.