January 08, 2009	Thursday	Muharram 10, 1430

PESHAWAR, Jan 7: Owing to the deteriorating law and order situation in the NWFP, the Pakistan Petroleum Dealers Association has decided to keep all petrol pumps closed at nighttimes.

The association’s Frontier chapter has sent letters to various officials in this regard including NWFP inspector-general of police, district coordination officer, commissioner Peshawar.

It stated that owners of petrol pumps were not feeling themselves secure and they had the only option to stop sale of petroleum products at night.

Association President Mansoor Sharif told Dawn that the decision was taken in a meeting, largely attended by owners of the petrol pumps, and most of them had expressed concern over lack of security in their areas. He said the owners were facing various crisis and they were not feeling their lives and properties secure in the prevailing circumstances.

“The increasing cases of robbery have scared the businessmen and they couldn’t take the risk to continue sale of fuel at night,” he said. He said police were least bothered to continue patrolling at night and police guards were also not provided to them.

Besides, he said, the government had reduced commission and they could not hire services of private security guards. The loadshedding had also made lives of the people miserable and they had to use power generators at night which was causing huge financial losses to them while the income was next to nil, he claimed.

The supply of petrol, he said, was short from the oil companies and out of 150 only 15 petrol pumps were getting supply on daily basis while the rest of them had to wait. The owners had to pay cash in advance, but the fuel was supplied with delay to the stations which he termed great injustice with the businessmen.

In the prevailing conditions, he said, only the Pakistan State Oil was supplying oil while supply from rest of the companies had been stopped.

The government was unable to ensure smooth supply of oil even in the comparatively peaceful days and in case of any war, the entire system would collapse.

Mr Sharif demanded of the government to reopen all closed oil depots in the country and ensure supply to every district from the nearest stations so that the carriage duty and other problems could be overcome.