Motorists face hardships as gas stations run out of petrol in Mardan

MARDAN: Motorists are facing hardships in getting fuel as petrol pumps dried up in the district due to the prevailing petrol crisis that has hit the country.
The commodity is being sold at Rs90 to Rs150 per litre in the black market in various parts of Mardan district.Bashir Muhammad, a resident of Gharibabad village in Mardan, said he went to four gas stations but failed to find fuel for his bike. “I parked my motorcycle at home as I couldn’t find petrol to use it,” he added.
He said managers cited non-supply of the fuel to the fillings stations as a cause for the shortage.
Zameen Nawab, resident of Shamozai village in Katlang tehsil, said he couldn’t go to duty on his bike and had to hire a taxicab due to shortage of petrol. “Some profiteers and shopkeepers, who sell the commodity illegally, are fleecing poor consumers by selling petrol at Rs150 per litre,” he added. He alleged owners of some petrol pumps were also involved in the malpractice.
One Iftikhar Khan said that he owned four filling stations but three were shutdown due to non-supply of fuel by the Pakistan State Oil (PSO) and the private petrol supply companies.
He said he used to buy 15,000 litres petrol from PSO before the crisis and now his petrol stations were provided 5,000 litres. He said he could only run one filling station with this meagre quantity. “The stock is exhausted within a few hours as the demand is very high,” he added.
He said they only offered two litres fuel to the bikers and five litres to motorists and other heavy vehicles. “We don’t sells more petrol to the consumers as we want to provide to more people,” he added.
He said the profiteers and shopkeepers were willing to pay them Rs100 to Rs120 per litre as they then sell it in the black market for Rs140 to 150 per litre.President of the Mardan Petroleum Dealers Association and member Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Dealers’ Association Committee, Akhtar Nawaz, said that there were 92 private filling stations in the district.
He said the daily consumption of fuel in the district was more than 150,000 litres but only 20,000 litres a day was being provided nowadays.
He alleged that half of the 20,000 litres was being provided to the PSO-run filling stations. “It is an injustice as the private petrol pumps cannot run their business with a meagre quantity of 10,000 litres,” he added. “Two of my petrol pumps have been closed for the last eight days due to non-supply of the fuel,” he added.He said the people blamed the filling stations for shortage and for creating an artificial crisis to fleece consumers. “This isn’t true. There were 1,300 illegal agencies selling the product but the administration was least bothered to take action against them,” he argued.
He lamented that neither the provincial government took up the issue with the federal government nor the media highlighted the crisis when it emerged in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He said the crisis emerged due to lack of vision and incompetency of the federal government.
He attributed the fuel crisis to the Rs220 billion arrears of PSO outstanding against the Independent Power Producers and other state institutions. “But the government put the responsibility on PSO and suspended its senior officials,” he added.This scribe made phone calls and sent text messages to seek comments of Deputy Commissioner Mardan Shahidullah Khan about the issue but he chose not to respond.