CNG stations closed for 3 days in Lahore
Lahore: CNG Stations have been closed in Lahore region for the next three days as part of Gas Load Management Plan, Geo News reported on Monday.
According to schedule the stations will remain closed till Thursday morning. Long queues of vehicles remained stuck awaiting turn at different CNG stations till Monday morning ahead of the gas closure.
Some of the motorists complained that they could not enjoy weekly off on Sunday and kept waiting in their vehicles around the filling stations to get their fuel tanks filled before outlets were closed.
A tired man told Geo News indicating towards a long queue of vehicles ahead; “It seems like we are going to get free of cost CNG.
An angry woman vents her anger by criticizing the rulers, “did we vote them to power for this,” she pointed to the vehicles and paused for a while and then went on saying “to make our lives miserable and to humiliate us like that”
A young motorist said he had been waiting for four hours for his turn.
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Gruesome Ludicrous Merciless Punishment (GLMP) of CNG stations
I am commenting but very truthfully on the news flashed in one the most leading newspaper of the country saying that in Lahore region all CNG Stations will remain closed for three consecutive days in accordance to Gas Load Management Plan (GLMP) which could be fine provided it had not hurt the general public so severely and brutally.
I am out of my beloved Pakistan from 1976 so being a bit cut off from the country at times my information could be a bit rusty as regards to what you people living in the country face. However, after admitting the fact please let me allow to pen that ever since I not only keep visiting Pakistan but read newspapers too at the net so I am that off the track either. I have not any idea, even vague, as to when cars were switched over to CNG but certainly it was not so till August 1976 though I did not own a car when I flew out from Lahore for my 1st overseas employment in Saudi Arabia. It is an extra plus point for Pakistan to be honest to Allah that we successfully find out an alternate to petrol to drive cars which I am told is cheaper than petrol in any case hence I have no right whatsoever even to raise my eye brows or bring wrinkles on my face what to talk of criticizing about consumption of CNG in cars and certainly over the period of time CNG has paid dividends for its introduction as people could drive at cheaper rate if compared with the vehicle driven on petrol.
Regretfully I am very much displeased or more correctly very much hurt tinged with annoyance that for so many years, months and weeks are out of question, people back home are facing nothing but hardships which are many and I need not discuss them here at this point of time and will instead limit to CNG only. The news I am referring to is not read for the 1st time by me since time and again it is flashed in our media that people are not getting regular supply of CNG to drive their cars. Different officials both from the government like minister and chairmen of private companies have always issued different statements telling the people that none should worry at all about the supply of CNG in case if there is some disruption in its supply which will be for the shortest possible time in any case and they will go even to the extent of saying on solemn oath that we are fully committed from day one to serve you in the best possible manner. Such like flowery language and that too from the top rung is certainly very much heartening which soothes and comforts all those who are feeling jittery about disruption of CNG supply. People did believe in such flowery statements and kept mum for a while and accepted the difficulties being faced with no complaint but then there is a limit to suffer and if patience is tested to infinity then one finds that all those who were calm and cool automatically become restless and agitate as when they are made to suffer for none of their fault and I think you will also agree with me that such like awkward situation be avoided under all circumstances.
To the best of my knowledge and belief CNG is basically provided by nature itself like petrol and it is also certified that nature does not withhold whatever is being supplied so from that point of view I really wonder as to how and why there is no continual supply of CNG to the car owners when there is no such interruption of its supply from the source but yet very much regretfully it is remarked that still very often people are subjected to unnecessary hardships. The only possibility of disruption is that perhaps we lack in getting it filled in the cylinders which have nothing to do with natural source of supply so why and how Pakistanis are suffering at the hands of Pakistanis right in Pakistan is really a mind boggling question if one truly realizes? If at all even for argument purpose I believe that there could be some unavoidable problems in supplying CNG then the simple logic demands that it must be spread out so that its pinch is lesser in pinch and one way or the other the consumer can endure it but if, on the contra, when people are deprived of getting CNG for three days in continuity then it turns into bitter quinine which cannot be swallowed even if coated with sugar.
You can very hardly find even single soul who is not to use his or her car on daily basis for more than one reason which is not for pleasure but necessity but when the fuel which is the very basic requirement to run a car is not available then how one can move even if there is an emergency? It is quite but natural that all those who have happily spent quite hefty money and got their cars converted into CNG they had invested on the hope that their driving will be cheaper but when they do not get CNG then they cannot move come what which is too much to tax the one spent money on conversion for pleasure and not annoyance. If in the first instance they knew of such like future untold hardships then some of them if not all of them may not have opted for conversion but alas now they are trapped and cannot help cursing none but themselves. Is it a new fashion or passion or both in my beloved Pakistan to tease people for no reason rhyme to get pleasure out of it?
Now let me end up by just quoting the heading of the news reading, ‘CNG Stations have been closed in Lahore region for the next three days as part of Gas Load Management Plan,’ Geo News reported on Monday. After reading the whole news and keeping in mind the prevailing conditions in Pakistan I immensely felt like defining and rewording Gas Load Management Plan (GLMP) none other than as ‘Gruesome Ludicrous Merciless Punishment (GLMP) and I am sure that you are with me and not against me.
Iqbal Hadi Zaidi / Kuwait
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