Tag: Lahore

LAHORE: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) staged a protest rally in Lahore on Sunday against the shortage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and rising flour and fuel prices, warning that it would stage a sit-in outside the head office of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (SNGPL) if gas outages continue.

Addressing the rally, PPP Lahore President Faisal Mir said ordinary people could not be left to face inflation and illegal profiteers on their own. He accused some sellers of creating an artificial LPG shortage in order to sell fuel at arbitrary prices, and blamed SNGPL for poor planning, saying gas outages were adding to the hardships of citizens.

Mir said the government was placing a further financial burden on the public by raising petrol prices, at a time when inflation had already made life difficult for working people and the salaried classes. He demanded an uninterrupted LPG supply, prices set in line with the purchasing power of the public, and relief for domestic consumers.

He also expressed concern that the authorities were targeting small shopkeepers instead of big hoarders. He urged the government to act without discrimination against what he called the LPG mafia, hoarders and illegal profiteers, and to ensure an uninterrupted gas supply at full pressure.

Other party leaders present at the rally included Majeed Ghori, Amir Naseer Butt, Afraz Naqvi, Waris Joiya, Anisa Bano and Abbas Shah. Ghori described the artificial shortage and arbitrary pricing as an injustice to the working class, and said the PPP would continue to raise its voice at every forum to protect the rights of the people.

The protest comes against a wider LPG supply disruption reported across the country. According to reports in The Express Tribune, LPG dealers shut around 5,500 to 6,000 outlets in Lahore and other cities in protest against enforcement action, leaving many households struggling to obtain cooking fuel. With LPG unavailable, many consumers turned to coal and dry firewood, pushing up the price of coal from about Rs40 per kilogram to between Rs50 and Rs60 per kilogram.

The government, meanwhile, has sought to play down fears of a wider fuel crisis. Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said on Saturday that the country’s crude oil and other energy supplies remained satisfactory, that arrangements were in place to meet energy requirements until November, and that preparations for winter were continuing. The remarks followed a Senate debate in which PPP Senator Sherry Rehman questioned whether petrol would remain available through December, noted that around 70 per cent of LPG requirements were met through imports and 30 per cent through domestic production, and called for a clear supply plan.

Mir repeated the warning that the party would stage a protest and sit-in in front of the SNGPL head office if load-shedding does not end, keeping the focus of the rally firmly on an uninterrupted and affordable gas supply for households.