ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday said the natural gas sector in the country was facing imminent challenges of resource shortage and circular debt and stressed a long-term strategy keeping in view national interests to address the issues. Addressing a seminar on ‘Sustainability, security, and affordability of natural gas supply in Pakistan, the Prime Minister said long-term planning on national matters was more important, rather than the approach by previous governments of taking short-term steps to appease voters for the next elections.
The Seminar, organized by Petroleum Division to deliberate upon the issues related to the gas sector, witnessed strong participation by provinces besides corporate heads and experts joining the platform for a meaningful discourse for the way forward. The Prime Minister said the country had started facing the problem of shortage of natural gas with the issue getting worsened in the winter season.
With the depletion of indigenous gas reserves, he said it was becoming difficult for the country to rely on expensive imported commodities due to big differences in rates. He expressed the concern that after electricity, the gas sector was also experiencing circular debts and also warned of its snowball effect in the future. The Prime Minister said only 27 percent of Pakistanis were getting piped gas, while the rest of the population depended on other resources like Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG).
He mentioned that he was also among those using LPG, which cost four times as compared to the piped supply of subsidized natural gas. Imran Khan said the main reasons for giving subsidies to any sector was either to uplift down-trodden or create wealth to ultimately increase Gross Domestic Product. However, in Pakistan, he regretted that the majority of subsidies were being given to the already stable and sound sectors, besides the wealth generated being diverted to payment of debts.
He said there would have been no shortage of resources and burden on common people, had the country started planning 40 years ago to meet its energy demands.
