The Petroleum Division has started work on a major restructuring of Pakistan's gas tariff system, aimed at abolishing the existing 12-slab consumer categories and introducing a single gas tariff, while shifting the basis of subsidies for vulnerable, or protected consumers from gas consumption to household income. According to top official sources, Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Ali Pervaiz Malik and his team have stepped up efforts to push through sweeping reforms of the gas tariff system. Under the proposed arrangement, protected consumers would no longer receive cheaper gas merely because they fall within a particular consumption slab. Instead, eligible low-income households would be provided with targeted financial assistance based on their income. The proposed single average gas tariff of Rs1,708 per MMBtu would apply across the board - not only to high-end domestic consumers but also to CNG stations, cement manufacturers and commercial and industrial users. The move could provide significant relief to industrial, cement and commercial consumers, whose gas input costs would fall substantially under the proposed regime. At present, high-end domestic and CNG consumers are among the categories contributing to the roughly Rs160 billion cross-subsidy used to keep gas tariffs lower for protected and some non-protected consumers. The reform would abolish the cross-subsidy and replace consumption-based gas subsidies with targeted, income-based assistance through the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), shifting the basis of support from how much gas a household uses to how much it earns. Top officials of the Petroleum Division have sent a summary to the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), seeking the release of Rs162 billion for targeted subsidies. The issue is likely to be taken up during the IMF review. The transition to the new tariff structure is scheduled to be completed soon.