Islamabad: Pakistan Finance Minister Miftah Ismail announced that the government was not in a position to bear subsidies on petroleum products anymore, therefore, it has decided to increase the prices of petrol by 24.03 PKR, taking it to a record high of 233.89 PKR per litre.
Starting from Thursday, the price of petrol will be 233.89 PKR per litre, diesel will be 263.31 PKR, kerosene oil will be sold for 211.43 PKR, and the price of light diesel oil will be 207.47 PKR, Geo News quoted the Minister as saying.
At the beginning of the press briefing, Ismail, who was flanked by State Minister for Petroleum Musaddaq Malik, criticised the previous government’s policies that, according to him, “deteriorated the country’s economy”.
“Imran Khan had deliberately reduced the prices of petrol by giving subsidies,” Ismail said, adding that the incumbent government was bearing the brunt of those decisions.
He said that currently, Pakistan, on every litre, was bearing a loss of 24.03 PKR on petrol, 59.16 PKR diesel, 39.49 PKR kerosene oil, and 39.16 PKR on light diesel oil, Geo News reported.
He said that in May, this loss had gone past 120 billion PKR, three times greater than running the expenses of the civil government, which amounts to 40 million PKR.
Reacting to the development, PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry took to Twitter and announced that his party had rejected the hike in petroleum products.