By: Muhammad Ibrahim Bhatti
According to Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, 72 per cent of the population is deprived of gas and the remaining 28 per cent at subsidized rates. Talking to media in the light of the meeting of the federal cabinet on Tuesday, he said that the people deprived of energy have the same right as those who use it. Beneficiaries are benefiting. He hinted that a gas cylinder policy would be introduced in the coming days, warning that the country was running out of gas by 9% every year, in view of which the people of big cities who have become accustomed to cheap gas would have to change their habits. It is true that the recent gas crisis and the depletion of Sui gas reserves in the next nine to ten years, which has sounded the alarm bells, has made it a matter of principle that consumers should However, it should also be noted that trillions of rupees have been spent so far in the form of pipelines for the door-to-door supply of gas which must be saved from being buried in the last two decades. Under the governments, there were some agreements with Iran and the Central Asian states for the acquisition of the gas pipeline, but they are not being implemented. Recently, a major agreement has been reached with Russia. The exploration of oil and gas within the country should be expedited on a solid basis for the future.