ISLAMABAD: Parliamentarians on Wednesday lodged a complaint with the Ministry of Petroleum about poor quality of fuel being sold at petrol pumps along the motorway.

Members of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Climate Change took serious notice of below quality fuel at the petrol pumps near Motorway interchanges supplying which badly affected consumers’vehicles.

The committee met for a briefing by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources about the Euro-II and Euro-V fuel specifications. After unanimously confirming the minutes of its previous meeting held on Feb 26, the committee however, directed thorough briefing when members met in the next meeting.

Members also complained that all these petrol pumps charged consumers 16pc extra, especially those consumers that pay their fuel price through credit and debit cards.

The committee directed officials from the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) to inquire into such types of complaints and report to the committee when it meets on next date. The committee directed Ogra to ensure that their complaint/help line numbers must be displayed at every petrol pump in the country for the facilitation of consumers.

Discussing the poor quality of fuel across the country, the members learnt that from August 1, the diesel available in Pakistan will be converted to Euro-IV.

Members have been complaining about substandard quality of petrol and diesel saying that while the rest of the world were upgrading to more environment friendly fuel technologies, including most countries in Asia, Pakistan is still far behind in switching to Euro III, Euro IV and Euro V standards of fuel.

Some members particularly complained about local refineries mixing manganese and other metals in high octane fuels to increase its research octane number (RON) to increase performance. However, mixing ‘harmful’ metals did not just choke catalytic converters in vehicles compromising performance and damaging engines but was detrimental to the environment.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2020