31,000 consumers denied petrol subsidy
ISLAMABAD: Thousands of petrol consumers have been denied subsidies, announced last month to provide relief to motorcycle, rickshaw and small car owners in the face of elevated international oil prices, but the system has exposed faults.
Sources told The Express Tribune that a high-level meeting was held where the issue was taken up. During the meeting, it was informed that 31,000 consumers had been denied subsidy.
The minister for petroleum asked about progress on the removal of token expiry, where the meeting was informed that 10,344 tokens had expired. The minister for IT and telecom highlighted that a survey message went to approximately 31,000 citizens whose tokens had expired, offering four reasons for non-redemption.
Of these, 11,000 cited lack of time while work continued with the Petroleum Dealers Association (PDA) on the expired tokens. The chair observed that refusal at fuel stations and technical failure should be read together, since a citizen learnt about the system fault from the station staff.
It was emphasised that the IT ministry should send a follow-up message to approximately 13,000 citizens, who cited refusal or a technical fault, encouraging them to visit a station again and rebook. A brief complaint sheet should also be prepared.
The IT minister revealed that 3,000 calls had been received by the 9771 helpline, of which around 400 were resolved at the first level. Punjab accounted for 1,700 calls and Sindh 618. Around 972 complaints were related to registration matters, 414 pertained to province mismatch, 72 were about incomplete registration and 250 were related to duplicate registration attempts, which required verification.
Punjab reported negligible refusal due to continuous field inspection, Sindh below 1% and Gilgit-Baltistan none. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa reported that out of the 200 complainants contacted directly, four cited refusal, with each traced to a temporary internet outage. The chair nonetheless cautioned against reliance on helpline statistics alone as citizens sometimes left without lodging a complaint.
The chair noted that four million redemptions across about 8,000 stations yielded a national average of nearly 500 per station and set a benchmark of 50 redemptions below which a station must be audited. The minister said that deputy commissioners could now download city-wise station lists from the dashboard.
The minister of state for finance said that visits to 40 to 45 stations revealed that both citizens and station staff mistakenly believed that a motorcycle must be registered in the applicant’s name. He noted that inter-city stations primarily served motorcycles, while highway stations catered to long-haul traffic. Additionally, he mentioned that Qingqi drivers with valid documents were encountering system errors.
It was decided that provincial and district administrations should audit every station recording fewer than 50 redemptions, monitor the highest-volume stations in each city and deploy additional devices where queues were found. Also, the provincial administrations shall publicise the requirement to lodge a complaint in the event of refusal.
The IT ministry shall circulate city-wise station lists to public affairs units for station-by-station feedback on the refusal of service. The meeting was further informed that the Ministry of IT would obtain from the call centre the specific causes of incomplete registration and would brief the relevant committee. It will share the remaining complaint logs with K-P for making direct contact with complainants.
The ministry shall correct through public messaging the belief that a motorcycle must be registered in the applicant’s name and shall report within two days the proportion of registered motorcyclists whose identity cards match the title. Assistant commissioners will compile the list of Qingqi rickshaw drivers holding a valid identity and excise documents to facilitate their registration.
