By IANS,
Islamabad : The Supreme Court has provided relief to the people by delinking the price of petroleum products from that of locally produced compressed natural gas (CNG), said a Pakistani daily, asking the government to sit up and think for the people.
An editorial in the News International Friday said the Supreme Court has once again acted in providing some relief to the people.
The court Thursday directed the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) to delink the price of petroleum products from that of locally produced CNG. The court noted that while “it was comprehensible that petroleum product rates are tied to international markets, this should have no bearing on the cost of CNG”.
The daily said that the logic is certainly solid; “in fact we should all wonder why it had not been questioned before”.
“The tariff sheets showed that CNG rates had risen from Rs.25 a kilogram to Rs.92 per kilogram since August 15 this year. An adjustment has now been ordered, and CNG users will be able to take a sigh of relief.
“The strategy was tied in with the government’s policy to bring CNG on par with petroleum, despite the suffering this led to,” it said.
There was more good news in store for people.
The court’s two-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has also stopped the weekly adjustment in petroleum rates.
“This fluctuation has been a constant source of tension within households, making it difficult to adjust budgets and leading to difficulties in obtaining fuel as pumps closed down ahead of an anticipated rise in price,” said the editorial.
Stating that the situation needed to be rationalised, it said that the court order should help achieve this.
“The rise in price of CNG had, in particular, placed huge strains on many, with public transport costs also rising each time the tariff went up.
“The court ruling should also make the government think; why should matters that are essentially administrative in nature need to be dealt with by the courts? Why should the judiciary need constantly to think about the situation of people? Why did the lack of logic over the CNG price not strike the government?”