ISLAMABAD: The government on Monday constituted a four-member committee to investigate complaints of domestic consumers against inflated gas bills.

The committee, headed by Addi­tio­nal Secretary (Policy) of the Petroleum Division Sher Afgan Khan, was notified by the Ministry of Energy a day after Prime Minister Imran Khan ordered an investigation into the complaints from domestic consumers against inflated gas bills received by him at citizens’ portal.

Talking to reporters in Lahore on Sunday, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said that the prime minister, who was on a daylong visit to the city, had directed Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Ghulam Sarwar Khan to launch an investigation to find out why inflated gas bills had been sent to domestic consumers,

The prime minister was also quoted as saying that it was unjustified to put extra burden of gas prices on the masses.

Seventy per cent of domestic consumers across the country used minimum up to 300mmf natural gas and the government had hiked the tariff for such consumers by 10 per cent only, while the major tariff rise was for the wealthy people using higher units of gas, Mr Chaudhry had elaborated while briefing the media about meetings of the prime minister in Lahore.

Interestingly, the subject of the notification says the committee has been formed to hold an “inquiry about faults in SNGPL monthly gas bills”, implying that the consumers have perhaps received inflated bills due to some technical error or a mistake by someone. However, the terms of reference given in the notification for the working of the committee itself says that the committee’s main task will be to “look into the excessive billing in view of increased price slab, recently introduced by the government and must seek its findings about the reason and justification of the excessive domestic gas bills”.

It further says the committee is also required “to look at the new slabs and suggest any rationalisation in view of the unprecedented increase in domestic gas bills”.

Besides this, the notification says that “the committee must look into the billing mechanism, including obs­ervation of 30 days billing per­i­od, timely reading of the metre and timely distribution of bills to the con­sumers in addition to other asp­ects of the billing system and procedure and suggest improvements”.

The other three members of the committee are Shahid Yousaf, directive of general (gas), Imran Ahmed, director general of (LG), and the general manager of (Billing) at the Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL).

Last week, Petroleum Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan during a news conference in Islamabad had admitted that inflated gas bills were a burden on consumers and offered them a “relief”, saying that they could pay hefty bills in four equal installments.

The facility, according to the minister, would be available to the consumers who had received bills of Rs20,000 or more.

Mr Khan termed the decision “a relief” for the consumers who could not afford to pay the bills in one go and yet wanted to avoid disconnection. The Sui Southern Gas Company Limited and the SNGPL had been directed to refrain from cutting gas supply to such consumers, he said.

Published in Dawn, February 5th, 2019