LAHORE, Sept 14: The government will not give the buyer of the Pakistan State Oil a free hand in fixing the price of petroleum products, says Federal Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister Nauraize Shakoor.

Talking to reporters after the conclusion of a function at Alhamra Art Centre here on Sunday, the minister said tenders had been called for October. The privatization, he claimed, would be conditional and the buyer would have to follow the laid-down rules.

Denying any proposal to increase gas tariff in near future, he said that only subsidy on the domestic consumption would go in three years which had already been announced by the government.

About the gasline blasts in the recent past, he said all problems with the Bugti tribe had been sorted out and hoped that there would be no sabotage act in future.

The government, he said, had been paying Rs9 billion annually to the Balochistan government as royalty on gas and would continue doing so. He said Bugti tribe chief Akbar Bugti had held out an assurance to the government about the safety of the gasline.

The minister also said the Asian Development Bank was preparing a feasibility of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) gasline, which would be ready shortly. But, the main concern of all countries and investors remained the security of the gasline. Unless the political and economic situation in Afghanistan stabilized, concerns about the security would remain paramount, he said.

About the proposed Iran-India gasline, the minister said that India had been assured security of the gasline.