THE government has been considering the imposition of 10.5 per cent general sales tax (GST) initially on petroleum products and may take it to 17pc if monthly revenue collection data showed signs of underperforming against the first quarter of 2022-23 fiscal.

This will be devastating for the common man who has already been crushed by hyperinflation over the last almost four years. We need to immediately adopt fuel-saving techniques to not only save precious foreign exchange, but also to save people from brutal inflation.

The world has realised the potential of work-from-home strategy and is continuing with it even post-Covid due to substantial cost saving to both the employers and the employees. However, we are still unable to tap the opportunity and implement it on a grand scale.

People travel several kilometres every day to their workplaces which not only results in incurring a heavy fuel cost, but also causes health and psychological hazards to people owing to regular traffic congestion and crumbled infrastructure, especially after the recent monsoon rains.

Here, the corporate sector should realise its social responsibility and implement work-from-home policies whenever possible. If some organisations cannot take such action for any reason, they should offer alternative solutions. Large corporate houses and manufacturing units, for instance, should arrange company transport for their employees to reduce the number of cars and motorcycles on the roads.

Banks, insurance, telecommunication companies and other branch network services outlets should deploy employees closer to their respective homes. In Western countries, students are given admissions in schools only near their homes in order to avoid commuting stress to the children. We should also take that into consideration.

There are several other ways that can be adopted to benefit our people and our economy in these frustrating times.

Imran Roshan Ali
Karachi

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2022