BAHAWALPUR: Petrol pump dealers have allegedly created acute artificial shortage of the fuel in the city and its suburbs.

Motorists and motorcyclists have been experiencing petrol shortage for five days, as pump owners had either shut down their outlets or reduced supply, resulting in motorists spending long hours in queues to get a small amount of petrol.

Despite the suffering of motorists, the labour department has failed to take notice and when their officials were contacted, they could not be reached.

However, petrol pump owners claimed that they did not receive supply from companies due to which there was temporary shortage of petrol. They hoped that during the next few days, the supply would be regulated after which the situation would improve.

TOBA TEK SINGH: Petrol shortage at filling stations of the district continued for the fifth consecutive day on Friday.

Most of the filling stations remained closed. The ones that were open saw long queues of motorcycles and cars and did not sell petrol for more than Rs50 to motorcycles and Rs500 to cars.

Meanwhile, District Petroleum Dealers Association President Chaudhry Abdul Ghaffar Rashid claimed that petrol was being supplied to pumps only by Pakistan State Oil, while all private companies have suspended supply for a week due to which there was acute shortage of petrol.

On the other hand, illegal petrol dealers, who had stored the fuel in drums, were looting motorists at Rs100 or more per litre.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2020