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CNG stations in residential areas posing threat

By Terence J Sigamony

RAWALPINDI: The increasing number of CNG filling stations in thickly populated residential areas is posing a serious threat to the lives of people living in adjacent localities.

These CNG stations, in almost every residential area of the city including Tulsa Chowk, Bakra Mandi, Khayaban-e-Sir Syed, Ratta Amral, Chungi 22, Tench Bhatta, Muslim Town, Adiala Road and Saidpur Road, are not only posing a threat to the lives of the residents, but also causing gas shortage in nearby localities during winters.

Shahid Javed, a resident of Saidpur Road where many CNG stations have emerged during the last five years, told Daily Times that the government instead of discouraging their establishment in residential areas was issuing more licences for the purpose.

“These CNG stations are a looming danger for adjacent localities as any incident of blast or gas leakage could heavily cost the residents,” he said. He added that the CNG stations were also responsible for traffic jams, which had now become a routine and making the lives of the area’s residents miserable.

The CNG stations trend in Pakistan started in mid eighties when Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan (HIDP) set up two CNG filling stations in Karachi and Islamabad. During the last two decades the number of CNG consumers in the country has increased manifold, as gas being an economical and alternative fuel is replacing petrol.

Ahmed Hassan, a Satellite Town resident, said during the last few years several cases of blasts at CNG stations across the country had claimed lives of numerous people living in nearby areas.

District Coordination Officer (DCO) Irfan Elahi told Daily Times that CNG stations were set up only in residential areas of the city where business was already in progress. He said prior to issuing licences to the applicants, the government had taken No Objection Certificates (NOCs) from the residents of the localities. Elahi said the CNG stations were equipped with state-of-the-art automatic gas pressure control systems. “High-pressure compressors of various designs including L-type, W-type, V-type and D-type imported from the US, India, New Zealand and China have been installed,” he added. The DCO said the government was taking steps to promote CNG use in the country by exempting all taxes and duties on the import of machinery used for CNG conversion and refuelling stations to save the huge spending on import of liquid fuels. He said gas was also providing reduced transportation costs to the common man and had become source of new business and employment opportunities.

In the last three years almost 900,000 vehicles have been converted to CNG. Around 150,000 vehicles are being converted to gas in a year that makes Pakistan the third largest user of CNG vehicles in the world after Argentina and Brazil, says the CNG Stations Association website.

Imran Masood, an environmentalist working for an NGO, said clause 16 of the Oil and Gas Regularity Authority states, “The authority or any person duly authorised by the authority in this behalf may enter, inspect and examine any place in which he has reason to believe that there is any work(s) for compressing natural gas for the purpose of storing, measuring or distribution of CNG and take other necessary steps for the due observance of the provision of these rules by licensees, consumers or any other person connected with the storage, filling, distribution and use of CNG.”

He said practically it was not so, as the inspection of CNG stations was conducted occasionally.

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