LAHORE: The shortage of Sui gas and persistently low pressure have sharply increased hardship for residents of Lahore, forcing domestic consumers to buy expensive liquefied petroleum gas. Recent reports have also identified LPG being sold in Lahore well above the official rate.
Demand for LPG has risen because of the unavailability of gas in various parts of the city. Retailers, however, are ignoring official rates and charging arbitrary prices.
The official price of LPG for August has been fixed at Rs254 per kilogramme. Complaints have emerged that the same gas is selling in the Lahore market at close to Rs450 per kilogramme — a premium of roughly 77 per cent over the notified rate.
Residents say Sui gas is unavailable in homes and that low pressure has made cooking difficult, while purchasing an LPG cylinder as an alternative is moving beyond the reach of the ordinary household. Affected citizens have demanded that the district administration take immediate notice of the shortage and of sales above the official rate, and act against profiteering.
Exasperated by what they describe as the worst gas load shedding, tandoor owners have announced a protest.
The Muttahida Nan Roti Association has given a call to protest on 15 September outside the Gurumangat office of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited.
According to the association, tandoor owners from across the city will participate. Their business is directly linked to gas supply, but prolonged and unannounced gas load shedding is severely damaging trade.
The bakers’ position is that the unavailability of gas is forcing them to use LPG as an alternative fuel — yet LPG is not available anywhere at the official rate. Using expensive LPG is raising business costs, and meeting those costs in present conditions has become difficult.
The Muttahida Nan Roti Association says continuous gas load shedding has left tandoor owners facing acute financial difficulties, and has called on the government and the relevant authorities to take immediate notice.
The association has warned that if its demands are not accepted despite the 15 September protest, a further course of action will be announced.
The gap between Rs254 and Rs450 is not a simple case of shopkeepers overcharging, and readers are entitled to understand the mechanism.
OGRA notifies a monthly LPG producer price based on the Saudi Aramco contract price plus specified margins for marketing and distribution. That notified figure is enforceable at the producer and marketing-company stage. By the time a cylinder reaches a neighbourhood retailer, it has passed through distributors and sub-distributors, and enforcement at that final link falls to district administrations, which have neither the field strength nor the sanctioning power to police thousands of outlets.
The gap widens predictably whenever piped gas supply falls, because LPG demand is highly inelastic in winter and during pressure shortfalls — a household that cannot cook will pay what is asked. That is precisely the seasonal window profiteers rely on, and it is why price magistracy usually arrives after the shortage rather than before it.
The bakers’ complaint sits at the intersection of both problems. Tandoors are classified as commercial consumers and are among the first to face curtailment when the system is short; they then buy LPG in bulk at the same inflated market rate, and the cost lands on the price of a roti. Any serious response has to address supply allocation and retail enforcement together. Addressing only one moves the shortage around rather than reducing it.
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