PESHAWAR: Transporters on Thursday expressed concern over the increase in CNG price and announced to unilaterally increase fares by 100 per cent from Saturday (tomorrow) if the provincial government did not revise the fare list immediately.

Talking to this correspondent here, Public Transport Owners Association president Khan Zaman Afridi said that the official rate of compressed natural gas (CNG) was Rs114 per kilogramme while the owners of CNG pumps had started charging consumers at the rate of Rs119 per kg.

He said that the owners of CNG filling stations had set separate prices at their free will, but no action was taken against them.

Mr Afridi said that the government had repeatedly increased prices of petroleum products but it did not revise the fare list and thus forced the transporters to increase the fares at their own.

The transport department, he said, was duty-bound to revise the fare list as per increase in the fuel prices in order to avert scuffles among the people.

He feared that if the government failed to take action the owners of CNG filling stations would increase the price by Rs5 within next few days.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2019