Pakistan Petroleum Dealers Association (PPDA) has called a nationwide strike on November 25 against the practise of selling gasoline at “poor profit margins,”.
According to a spokeswoman for the organisation, all gasoline stations around the nation will be closed on Thursday, November 25.
Adding that gas stations in Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan would be closed on Thursday, the spokesman said that “we have no choice but to go on strike” since “the government has failed to meet the November 17 deadline for the fulfilment of our requests.”
In the event that the government continues to reject the association’s requests and continues to provide it with “false comfort,” he predicted that the strike will last for a “unspecified duration.”
This is the second time in three weeks that the group has issued a call for a strike. They had planned to make a similar statement on November 5, but they cancelled their plans when a government team agreed to boost margins on petroleum goods by 6 percent within a few days.
A committee headed by Petroleum Secretary Dr Arshad Mahmood will be established to oversee the execution of the deal, which will be approved by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) and the federal cabinet within the following ten days, according to the meeting.
Since then, however, there has been no significant development. Abdul Sami Khan, Chairman of the Petroleum Products Dealers Association, said that petroleum dealers have been in a tough situation as a result of the high cost of doing business and poor profits. He said that, in the face of escalating power bills, the government guaranteed a margin of just 2 percent on the sale of fuel oil.
“We demand that the government withdraw our fuel pump licences,” he said, adding that “almost half of the petrol stations would go down permanently if the licences are cancelled since no one will seek for acquisition.”
His demands included “immediate increase in dealers’ margin on ex-depot price for HSD and MS without burdening common people and without increasing the prices of petroleum products, absorbing dealers’ margin increase by reducing Sales Tax and PDL,” and “immediate increase in dealers’ margin on ex-depot price for HSD and MS.”
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