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OGRA urges ban on CNG use in public transport

14 June, 2013

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ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court was told on Thursday that the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) has recommended the federal government ban the usage of CNG in public vehicles.

This was revealed as a three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, reserved its judgement over the suo motu case of a school bus fire that killed 18 schoolchildren and a female teacher in Gujrat on May 25. During the hearing, Afnan Kundi, counsel for OGRA, submitted a report of the Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan (HDIP) about the incident.

He told the court that OGRA had asked the federal government several times to ban the usage of CNG in public vehicles but it did not give any deadline in this regard. He said that such an incident might happen again in future if the government does not bar the usage of CNG in public vehicles.

The HDIP report said that a number of accidents had occurred in the past due to lack of maintenance, tampering and alternation of petrol systems in the public transport. "It is strongly recommended that either the public service vehicle should run on dedicated fuel only (either petrol or CNG) or strict measures should be taken to immediately stop the practice of using petrol cans placed in passenger compartments of public service vehicles," it added.

It is also recommended that petrol stations must be dissuaded from selling petrol in containers to any public transport vehicle, be it a bus, taxi or rickshaw. The HDIP report noted that the female teacher kept rescuing the children and should be given civil gallantry award for extraordinary valour as her physical safety had been perilously exposed to danger during the rescue. It claimed that the main cause of the accident was substandard petrol system and lack of other safety measures.

The HDIP report claimed that none of the CNG cylinders exploded in the accident and they were empty at the time of inspection apparently due to escape of gas during the fire. "Most probable cause of fire appears be the leakage of petrol from petrol cans or hose pipe causing the petrol to catch fire due to either an electric spark shortcircuit or due to contact with a hot spot in the engine/exhaust system," it added.

On the other hand, Punjab government and OGRA in their reports tried to shift responsibility of the incident to the other. According the police report, the accident was caused by negligence and carelessness of driver Muhammad Irfan, substandard petrol supply system and poor roadworthiness of the vehicle.

End.

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