Daily Times

Sir: We are a strange nation, that is, if at all we are a nation. Over the years, we have become a society that consumes everything and that too, in abundance. In other words, we produce less in most cases and then go on to consume more and more, irrespective of whether we have to import one or the other commodity to meet our growing requirements and pay in precious foreign exchange.

This is in context of the recent news that Pakistan is now going to import oil from India after getting supplies of mutton, vegetables, fruit and what not on a daily basis from a neighbouring (but highly unfriendly) country. This is indeed yet another glaring example of our producing less and consuming a lot, unmindful of the need to cut our requirements of all items according to what we are producing locally to the maximum extent possible instead of relying on others even for daily use items.

I request the federal and provincial governments that austerity measures be adopted both in the public and private sectors to try to meet our requirements within the limits of what we’re producing locally, oil products being one of them. Otherwise, the oil import bill will go up every year.

In order to keep the consumption of oil products to the lowest level to the maximum extent possible, the government, irrespective of which party is in power, should, in the larger national interest, adopt fuel-saving measures on a priority basis.

One big step that could be taken easily is to opt for some fuel-saving gadgets, which have been innovated, tested and used internationally. Some such equipment is also available locally, which, according to the manufacturers and the supplier, give an appreciable saving in fuel consumption up to 25 percent without compromising on long distances travelling. The saving may be less in the ratio of 15 to 20 percent but it would still help a great deal a lot when this fuel-saving gadget is used on a large scale in the vehicles in the transport pools of the federal and provincial governments. It would reduce fuel consumption and minimise dependence on oil imports. The federal government will not have to increase petroleum products prices almost every month as a ritual.

ASMAAR BILAL

Lahore