ISLAMABAD: Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) here Friday while hearing Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) review application and contempt of court plea of the CNG station owners, directed Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources and SNGPL to supply uninterrupted gas to the CNG stations of Rawalpindi/ Islamabad region as per schedule.He also directed the SNGPL to reinstall the CNG stations gas meters that they had removed.
SNGPL had filed a review application while saying that they were facing hardships to provide natural gas to the domestic and commercial consumers at full pressure due to the high court stay orders against the indefinite closure of the CNG sector.
IHC bench also heard the contempt of court application filed by 77 CNG station owners against SNGPL officials for restraining them from operating their business despite the court directions.
Previously Justice Siddiqui on December 20 restored gas supply through an interim order after 77 CNG stations had contended that it would be an economic murder of the people related to this sector.
SNGPL and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources in their review application prayed to the court to vacate stay orders of December 20 as the court through an interim order had restored supply of the gas as per previous schedule of three days a week.
SNGPL adopted that there was an acute low pressure of natural gas in the twin cities due to the stay order.
SNGPL through Hafiz Ullah Yaqoob advocate argued before the court that the domestic and commercial users were the priority of the gas distribution company. The court stay order was causing great inconvenience to the SNGPL as the domestic and commercial consumers were suffering badly. In winter season, the gas pressure is very low.
SNGPL counsel further argued that the domestic consumers were facing acute gas shortage and they would stage protests and it would also create law and order situation for the administration.
Referring to the gas load management policy of 2005, the counsel said that domestic and commercial sectors were the SNGPL?s first priority, power sector second, industrial and fertilizer third, cement sector and captive power fourth and the CNG sector was on the fifth among the priorities of the government.
The counsel contended that the decision for not supplying gas to CNG sector was a day-to-day administrative affair and could not be challenged through a petition.
He said that there was no mention of uninterrupted supply of gas to the CNG sector in the terms and condition of the filling stations. And if the CNG gas station owners were aggrieved due to government?s decision, they could challenge the same before Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra).
SNGPL produced statistics before the court. As per these statistics the gas distribution company is getting 1.6 billions cubic feet gas per day (bcfd) against total requirement of 2.8 bcfd. The total consumption of domestic consumers of twin cities is 100 millions cubic feet per day (mmcfd) in summer season. During winter season it increases to 280 mmcfd.
The statistics suggests that total requirement of domestic consumers along with CNG sector is 400 mmcfd while SNGPL is receiving only 220 mmcfd. The CNG station owners in their contempt of court application adopted that SNGPL officials had removed the gas meters from some of the filling stations.
Petroleum Ministry?s counsel Mir Aurangzeb contended before the court that because of acute gas shortage, the government decided to suspend gas supply to the CNG sector during the extreme cold weather as under the Natural Gas Allocation and Management Policy 2005 it was the right of the domestic consumers to get the supply on priority basis.
He informed the court that the federal government did not flout the court orders as after the issuance of stay order since December 20, the distribution company had sold Rs50 million natural gas to the CNG stations. The officials removed meters from those filling stations only that were defaulters or had violated certain rules.The court after issuing above order put off the hearing till first week of February.
CNG stations in Pindi, Islamabad to get gas - thenews.com.pk
