Increasing incidents of gas cylinder blasts

The ratio of gas cylinder blast has been increasing during last year. This technology was introduced in the country back in 2000-01.

This industry has been grown up many folds and many CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) stations have also been working in the country. Commercial vehicles like vans and buses also started use of CNG cylinders in place of Diesel and Petrol with locally designed modifications during the 2006-07.

We hardly heard any news of gas cylinder accidents when these cylinders were new. Every cylinder used for carrying pressurized storage needs inspection after a specified interval of two to five years.

The ratio of accidents is increasing, as these cylinders are getting older and no inspection plan is implemented thus far. Especially the owners of commercial vehicles are using poor quality cylinders and they are least bothered about its inspection and testing.

On the other hand, the government as usual has no law to insure the timely inspection of these cylinders and stop usage of cylinders that will fail the inspection test.

Pakistan currently has the highest number of vehicles running on CNG in the world followed by Iran, Argentina and Brazil. Pakistan also has the highest number of CNG stations in the world numbering more than 3600.

Majority of private vehicles have converted to CNG because of cheaper price as compared to petrol. Only luxury cars and official vehicles now run on petrol.

Recently, new CNG Buses had been introduced by CDGK in Karachi. Almost all car manufacturers in Pakistan (except Honda) now produce company fitted CNG kit versions.

The issue has not been taken up as a seriously despite deaths in cylinder blasts are regularly reported by the media. The issue needs to be taken up before more people are so needlessly killed, simply as a result of administrative indifference and inefficiency.

The government should introduce rules and regulations for the use of f CNG cylinders in public transport vehicles. Most of the cases were occurred in public transport vehicles.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=24550

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Jun 2 2012. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.