Petrol; Where we go from here?

They say money can buy every thing except love. This is not true. You cant buy petroleum even if you have money, at least not in Lahore.

Now petrol is deficient in Pakistan, particularly the situation is getting critical in Lahore. It has been nine days that people are not getting petrol. Auto owners are seen pushing their big big cars with bug big tyers to the closest petrol station where they find “Petrol is Not Available” and find a long queue of cars already waiting for their turn. Today, I was shocked when lined up in one of the longest queue I have seen in life, I saw a very young son pushing a car and an old father steering it to the station. Once they reach the station, they get little quantity of petrol (depending upon the logic and wishes of the petrol station administration).

Lahories are used to different type of shortages! They have experiences and are used to electric shortages, sugar shortages, floor shortages, CNG shortages. But the going gets difficult when they adjust to one shortage and the next starts.

This is not political and you can blame it on any thing but such situations are nothing but lack of responsibility, lack of will and mismanagement. Some one sitting pretty might ask people to ‘live under these difficult times and sacrifice more but I am wondering till when people of Pakistan will keep sacrificing and facing challenges on the name of patriotism. [Also at Light Within]

6 Comments so far

  1. Tweets that mention Petrol; Where we go from here? | Lahore Metblogs -- (pingback) on September 19th, 2010 @ 3:31 pm

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  2. Don Cox (unregistered) on September 20th, 2010 @ 7:45 pm

    Why is this happening?

    Are the oil companies not importing enough oil? Or are there not enough refineries?

    One would expect the oil companies to organise themselves to satisfy the demand.

  3. SSS (unregistered) on September 21st, 2010 @ 9:19 am

    Well, this is hapenning because the country’s largest oil refinery, PARCO, was surrounded by water and all roads leading to it are destroyed. Its production was shut for a good 2-3 weeks. Now we’ve been told that it has started production, but the roads still have to be built. Hopefully the situation will improve in a week.

  4. Don Cox (unregistered) on September 23rd, 2010 @ 5:49 pm

    Ah, that makes sense.

    So, the question is, who decided to build an oil refinery on a flood plain?

    From what I hear, there were similar floods 80 years ago, so they should have known what was likely to happen.

    Similar floods are likely to be more frequent in the future, because of deforestation and global warming.

  5. SSS (unregistered) on September 23rd, 2010 @ 6:02 pm

    Well Don.
    No one knew the floods were coming. You are right about future floods, but its too late! Can’t move the refinery around!
    It’s called the Mid-Country Refinery, been built to serve as the main fuel centre of the country.
    I’ve heard they’ve dispatched around a 100 oil tankers, so hopefully the situation will improve!

  6. Kaami (unregistered) on September 23rd, 2010 @ 10:46 pm

    “Mian Sahib Aaa gaye ne, sub theek ho jaey gaa”

    This was the line a Lahori freind of mine gave as a reply in 2008 when I visited Pakistan, the question was:

    “Why on earth you want to remove Musharraf?”

    I guess the question is still outstanding.
