Economic Coordination Committee defers plan to recover Rs100bn from gas consumers

While approving an already allocated Rs7.5 billion subsidy package for the upcoming Ramazan, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet could not decide how to recover Rs100bn in additional money from gas consumers in the remaining four and a half months of the current fiscal year as the commerce minister pressed for reducing cross-subsidisation burden on industry. The meeting of the ECC, presided over by caretaker Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar, took up the Petroleum Division’s summary for increasing gas rates envisaging about Rs70 to Rs300 per unit (mmBtu, or million British thermal units) for various slabs of residential consumers among others. Informed sources said caretaker Commerce Minister Gohar Ejaz called for minimising the burden of cross-subsidy on the industrial sector. He is also reported to have made a pitch for the continuation of gas to certain Captive Power Plants (CPPs) of the industrial sector, notwithstanding past decisions for shifting industries from their CPPs to the national grid which had surplus generation capacity and declining demand.