The Punjab police have launched a crackdown on the hoaders of petroleum products across the province and seized a huge quantity of petrol and diesel.
The crackdown has been launched in the aftermath of shortage of POL products in several cities of the province. The seized quantity of fuel is worth around Rs630 million.
Police teams raided several filling stations and storage depots in Sheikhupura, Kasur, Gujrat, Muzaffargarh and other cities and sezied oil tankers.
On the other hand, motorists are still facing difficulties in finding fuel at some petrol pumps in cities including Lahore. They are complaining about receiving limited fuel at some petrol pumps. There are reports of closure of many filling stations in Lahore.
The shortage persists depsite tall claims by Minister of State for Petroleum Musadik Malik who had earlier dispelled the rumours regarding shortage of petroleum products in the country. He told a press conference on Wednesday that Pakistan had sufficient stock of diesel and petrol.
Warning the hoarders, Mr Malik said the government would cancel the licences if someone was found involved in creating artificial shortage.
He dispelled the impression that the government was immediately increasing the prices of petroleum products. The minister said the government was taking steps to improve the economy of the country.
Meanwhile, Inspector General of Punjab Police Dr Usman Anwar has ordered a joint crackdown with the district administration against the big depots and agencies that are illegally stockpiling petrol across the province.
In a statement, he directed RPOs and DPOs to ensure action under personal supervision against all petrol depots and agencies that are illegally hoarding and to bring to book those who cause hardship and distress to the citizens by creating artificial scarcity of petrol.
The IG directed that indiscriminate action should be taken against the big depot owners who are creating artificial scarcity of petrol by illegal stockpiling and their reports should also be sent to the CPO office regularly.
Anwar said the depot owners involved in illegal business of hoarding do not deserve any concession, adding there should be no delay in strict action against such depot owners.
— Ogra asks Punjab CS to take action against hoarders —
The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) has also written a letter to the provincial chief secretary, asking him to take action against those illegally hoarding petrol and diesel stocks.
In a letter, Ogra’s Senior Executive Director – Enforcement Sohail Ahmed Tariq wrote that the authority had identified, through market intelligence, locations in Punjab that “might be in use to dump/store [petroleum] products for inventory gains”.
These 19 locations were contributing to the existing shortage of petroleum products in some cities of Punjab, thereby committing illegal acts, he added.
