LAHORE: During the 38-month rule of the incumbent Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), which had formally commenced on August 18, 2018 when Imran Khan was sworn in as country’s 22nd Prime Minister, the parity of the Pakistani rupee versus the American dollar has worsened from Rs124 to Rs173.50 on October 20, 2021, while the petrol prices have surged from Rs95.24 to Rs137.79 per litre during the same corresponding period. Simple calculations thus show that the dollar has ascended by 39.91 percent against the Pakistani rupee to help country’s foreign debt obligations and import bill mount despite healthy remittances and higher exports, whereas the petrol tariff has skyrocketed by approximately 44.68 percent to further add to the miseries of the already inflation-ridden and coronavirus-affected masses.
Although the tumbling of the Pakistani rupee against the Greenback, coupled with the volatility in global oil market, are the two major factors that contribute significantly towards increase in prices of essential kitchen items like sugar, vegetables, public transport fares, chicken, eggs, wheat flour, pulses, spices, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), cooking oil and rice etc. the rates of indispensable stuff and most vital daily-use articles vary from city to city in Pakistan, even from market to market in the same city, and from wholesale to retail markets in every town, without any plausible justification.
And now that the government functionaries have hinted that motorcyclists and rickshaw drivers might be given petrol at subsidized rates, one wonders as to how would this likely step offset the adverse inflationary impact when they go out buying basic food items from nearby markets!