MEDIA report said acute gas shortage is seriously hurting households, particularly for cooking as Ramzan starts rolling forcing housewives to prepare more food when the burner in the kitchen is hardly supplying enough gas to cook. Most areas of the city are suffering from low pressure and housewives are passing hardy days and sleepless nights to prepare family meals for Iftar and late night Sheri.
The government leaders claim that they are working hard to ensure enough supply at a time when total gas supply to the national grid is less than demand. They say they are working to improve supply and remove technical problems with distribution lines. What we want to say at this moment is that every one knows Ramzan is coming and normal gas supply to households should have been on the top priority. The government is trying to reduce dependence of piped gas for cooking but it is a different issue not to be linked with Ramzan. People want peaceful household this month and shortage of gas is heavily disrupting it. Moreover mere promise by government leaders of adequate supply without making good of such promises makes no sense. Drying of cooking burner once again shows the hollowness of the government commitment to people.
Many blame the government for switching a part of household gas to power generation to produce more electricity during Ramzan to avoid load-shedding. But such switching has caused greater problems to families cooking from piped gas. There could have been a better option for some private sector-run power plants to operate with furnace oil releasing gas for cooking during Ramzan. It could have been more advisable when the government has already lowered the price of furnace oil by a big margin. But since power producers are also in power, their decisions always protect their interest first. So despite good words of the ministers and senior functionaries of the government, remedies for housewives remains largely unattended.
Some government sources are quoted as saying that one can buy gas cylinder from market to overcome cooking gas crisis. But one should not lose sight to the fact that gas cylinders are expensive and many families will not be able to afford it after meeting other regular family expenses. So users of gas burner in households may have to spend the Ramzan days in utter anxieties for low pressure in supply line.
Our government is hardly attentive to people’s suffering unlike other countries where they make prior planning and arrangement for enough supply against demand on special occasions. They are pro-people government. Ours is a self-centered government that cares little about public suffering. But in our view at least during Ramzan, the government must do everything to mitigate the suffering of the people.
