LAHORE, Aug 6: The Pakistan Petroleum Dealers Association (PPDA) on Wednesday asked the government to withdraw the reduction in their margins or risk strike by the petroleum dealers.

Addressing a press conference PPDA chairman Abdul Sami Khan urged the government to restore the 60 paisa and 25 paisa dealers’ margins on petrol and diesel, respectively.

He announced that the dealers would gradually stop selling petroleum products on credit cards and put up protest banners at petrol pumps across the country from Wednesday against the government decision.

The association chairman is currently touring the country to take the dealers into confidence and lobbying for a successful strike. He denied that some dealers had been selling petroleum products smuggled from Iran and said that rather diesel was being smuggled to Afghanistan.

However, Mr. Sami admitted that the fortnight increase in the petroleum products rates benefited the petroleum dealers but claimed that it had reduced the business. The government has been fleecing the common man by collecting huge taxes on petroleum products, he claimed.

He dispelled the impression that the CNG owners getting gas from government at Rs22 per were selling it at more than double the price to the consumers. The government, he said, should fix a unified price of the CNG across the country to protect the