PESHAWAR: Sarhad Petroleum Cottage and Dealers Association has strongly reacted to the raids on various filling stations and warned to announce strike across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa if the practice of raids and putting heavy penalties on station owners was not stopped within a week.

Speaking at a press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Wednesday, the association’s general secretary Malik Karim Khan Afridi said that the district administration had started harassing the owners of petrol pumps by arresting staff members on different pretexts in parts of the province.

He alleged that the local administration was harassing the owners during raids in different parts of the province. He called for an immediate end to the raids and arrest of the fuel stations’ employees.

Flanked by the association’s office-bearers, including Rizwan Afridi, Asghar Khan, Qaisar Khan and others, Mr Karim said that the owners and workers of different filing stations in the city had been arrested without any charges against them. He said that they were regularly paying various taxes.

The frequent raids, he said, had affected their business and the owners were ready to surrender the filling stations to the government. He said that if the practice continued the investors would have to sack the workers due to financial constraints.

The association’s general secretary said that it was duty of the provincial government to take notice of the raids and stop the practice of imposing heavy penalties in the name of ‘form-K and form-J’.

He demanded of the administration to stop arresting petrol pump owners, otherwise they would be compelled to go on strike after one week for an indefinite period. He condemned the federal government for frequent and irrational hikes in prices of petroleum products on the recommendation of Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority.

Mr Karim claimed that a downward trend was witnessed in prices of petroleum products in international market, but the prices were gradually increasing in the country, which would cause increase in prices of daily-use commodities. He urged the federal government to follow the rates in international market while fixing the prices of petroleum products.

Rizwan Afridi said that dealers were given Rs1.90 profit per liter of petrol which could not meet expenditures of the owners. He demanded that the margin should be increased to at least Rs2.90 so as to check the illegal practice of overcharging and adulteration. He claimed that the oil agency holders were exploiting the consumers without any official check.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2018