Petroleum prices to be unchanged till June 30

ISLAMABAD: The caretaker government on Thursday decided that the existing prices of petroleum products may continue till mid-night of June 30, 2018.

Earlier, the PML-N government at the end of its five-year tenure on 31 May had left the monthly decision of setting new prices of petroleum to the caretaker government and decided that the existing prices may continue till mid-night of June 7, 2018. Now, the caretaker government also kept these prices unchanged. It is also interesting to note that the PML-N government at the end of its tenure also reduced the rate of General Sales Tax (GST) on these petroleum products. According to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) notification on May 31, the GST was been reduced on High Speed Diesel (HSD) from earlier 27.5pc to 17pc.

On motor spirit [or petrol], excluding HOBC, the tax was reduced to 7pc from the earlier rate of 15pc. Similarly, the rate of GST on Super Kerosene Oil has been reduced from 12 percent to 7 percent while on light diesel oil (LDO) the tax has been reduced to one percent against 11.5pc earlier.

This is to be noted that the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) had forwarded a summary to the Ministry of Energy Petroleum Division that recommended Rs12.50/litre (or 12.7percent) increase in High Speed Diesel (HSD) price to Rs111.26 from the existing 98.76/litre. Besides, it had also suggested to the government to increase the petrol price by Rs8.73 per litre (or 9.5 percent) to Rs96.07 from the existing Rs87.70 per litre.

Kerosene oil price was also suggested to be increased from Rs79.87 to Rs88.10 per litre with an increase of Rs8.23 per litre (10.3percent). Ogra had also suggested increasing the LDO price by Rs11.65 (16.9percent) to Rs80.50 from current Rs68.85/litre.

But, now after rejecting the proposal of Ogra, the caretaker government has announced not to change the prices for June 2018.