Petrol prices up by Rs1.71, diesel Rs1.52 per litre

ISLAMABAD: The government has increased petrol and diesel prices by Rs1.71 and 1.52 rupees per litre respectively for the first fortnight of March 2017, while the prices of kerosene oil and light diesel oil (LDO) have been slightly increased to Rs44 per litre each, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar announced on Tuesday.

These new prices will be effective from today (Wednesday). With the government’s announcement, the price of petrol from today will go up to Rs73 per litre from the earlier Rs71.29 and diesel price will be increased to Rs82/litre from current price of Rs80.48 a litre.

With the increase of Re0.75/litre in prices of kerosene oil and Re0.66/litre increase in LDO prices, their new prices will be at Rs44/litre each.  It is worth mentioning that Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) had advised the government to increase prices of various petroleum products up to 40.57 percent for the first fortnight of March 2017. Ogra had proposed an increase of 4.15 percent or Rs2.96 per litre in the prices of petrol and 2.7 percent or Rs2.18 per litre in the prices of HSD. It had also proposed increase of 40.57 percent or Rs17.55 per litre in the prices of kerosene oil and 25.24 percent or Rs10.94/litre increase in the prices of LDO.

Asim Yasin adds: Former finance minister and PPP Senator Salim Mandviwala has rejected increase in petroleum prices and said the PML-N government has failed in collecting revenue and now increasing petroleum prices every fortnight to fill in the shortfall in revenue collection.

“The government is facing 200 billion rupees shortfall in revenue by this time and further Rs200 billion shortfall is expected before the end of current fiscal year. The country is facing economic crisis due to economic policies of the government,” he said while reacting to the government decision of increase in the prices of the petroleum products.

Senator Mandviwala said the government is auctioning national assets. He said the prices of daily use items will increase with increase in petroleum prices and people will suffer immensely.