Festival demand for CNG worsens commuters' blues

Hyderabad: The festive rush exiting the city impacted the daily commuters on Tuesday morning as Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) stations here are running dry. As autos, taxis and other vehicles queued up at CNG stations, commuters were left stranded waiting to hail autos and cabs during peak hours.

It is said that shortage of CNG is a constant issue, as gas stations face inadequate supply. However, for the last few days, it was observed that various CNG stations had serpentine queues in Abids, Nagole, Secunderabad and other areas, due to running dry of natural gas. Only those vehicles that had full tanks were found on roads confidently; the rest had to park their vehicles at homes.

According to auto-rickshaw drivers, this problem has been prevailing since the last 10 days. "There is a severe crunch of CNG gas. During Dasara festival we are running out of fuel which also impacted our earnings. There was a time when drivers were forced to sleep at fuel stations to purchase gas the next day. Despite this, there is no guarantee that the required quantity of gas would be supplied, fumed A Sathi Reddy, a member of Telangana Auto Driver Samakya. He said "Waiting in such long queues outside gas stations with no idea whether gas will be available makes no sense."

K Venkat, an auto driver said, "I tried filling gas at night, but the station was shut. So I had to go back on Tuesday morning. after waiting for three hours for my turn to fill gas. There were long queues; many auto and taxi drivers were waiting to fill gas; hardly 20 vehicles had filled gas as there was no stock."

It's not just auto or taxi who are facing difficulties; even car-owners are running from pillar to post to fill gas. Shaik Salauddin who drives a CNG car said, "with festivities, I decided to take a long trip, but with lack of CNG, had to go on petrol. I could have saved a lot of fuel but could not find gas in the city." According to a gas agency which provides CNG across the city, vehicules leaving the city for the festival pushed the demand for CNG. "Owing to festivities, and holidays there has been a significant increase in vehicular movement. Such enhanced traffic coupled with congestion has led to an unexpected increase in CNG demand," said an officer.