KARACHI, March 1: The Sui Southern Gas Company is introducing a billing system whereby a consumer will be able to choose the due date for payment of his gas bill.

This was announced by SSGC Senior General Manager M. H. Asif at a press conference on Friday. He said the new billing system — which would be aptly referred to as flexible payment plan — had been adopted in view of complaints by consumers that while most people received their salaries in the first week of a given month, the due date was usually the 24th of the month.

“An advertisement will now be placed in the press which will contain an application form. A consumer will have to fill out the form, stating his consumer number, National Identity Card number and the date on which he wants to pay the gas bill. The procedure for submission of forms will be hassle-free so much so that the consumer will not even have to submit the photocopy of NIC.”

The SSGC general manager said under another billing plan, consumers would be allowed to pay their gas bills in advance. “In order to make advance payment of bills attractive, the SSGC will offer an eight per cent mark-up which is comparable with the mark-up offered by banks on personal savings accounts.”

Under another plan, he added, consumers would be able to pay an equal sum of money every month. “This plan is particularly applicable to people living on high altitude, such as Quetta, where winter bills are much higher than summer bills. In this way the consumer will pay a little more during summers and a little less during winters.”

Mr Asif shed light on the billing cycle run by the SSGC. “Our officials read 1,586,000 domestic meters in 18 days. They read 2,256 industrial consumers in one day. They read 17,640 commercial meters in two days.”

He admitted that despite such rigorous meter reading the SSGC issued at least 5-6 per cent provisional bills because of a variety of reasons, such as house being locked, meter missing, SSGC official not allowed to read a meter, meter located at abnormal height, meter not accessible, etc.

He said the SSGC was holding negotiations with Citibank and Muslim Commercial Bank to introduce billing through the Internet.

Mr Asif said gas theft — known as Unaccounted-For Gas (UFG) in the SSGC lexicon — also took place but it was under control. “As of December 31, 2001, the UFG value stood at 6.92 per cent. Apart from pilferage, the slowing down of meters with time is another factor responsible for UFG.”

He said a domestic meter slowed down after 20 years. The SSGC, he claimed, had replaced 90 per cent of all 20-year-old domestic meters with new ones. Industrial meters were replaced every three years, he added.

Asked to comment on the recent increase in gas rates announced by the federal government, the SSGC senior general manager said 78 per cent of the total 1,586,000 — who consumed less than 100 cubic meters of natural gas — would not be affected by the tariff hike.

Following an upward revision in gas rates, an average of 8.5 per cent increase in its prices would come into affect from March 1 for different categories of consumers in Sindh and Balochistan, said Mr Asif, PPI adds.

He said tariff for first slab of 101-200 units would go up by 7.9pc and for above 500 units by 20pc.

“All consumers of the first 100 units would be charged at the existing rates. The increase for the slab of 200- 300 units would be around 12pc followed by 14pc for 300-400 units, 17pc for 400-500 units and around 20pc for above 500 units,” he added.

He said out of the 1.6 million consumers of the SSGC the majority were from the urban areas of the two provinces. 78pc of them fell in the category of 1st slab, so they would remain unaffected by the recent increase in gas rates.

“16pc consumers, who would come in the 2nd slab, would bear 8pc increase. The 3rd slab belong to the affluent section constituting a total of 6pc of the consumers, as they use facilities consuming gas, and they would have to bear the 20pc rise in the prices of gas,” he said.