Hike in gas prices approved

Islamabad: The caretaker government, fulfilling another condition of International Monetary Fund (IMF), approved the hike in gas prices for domestic, commercial and industrial consumers.

According to the details, a meeting of Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) was held under the chairmanship of Finance Minister Shamshad Akhtar, in which the increased gas price for domestic, commercial and industrial consumers was approved.

According to the announcement made by Ministry of Finance, the ECC has approved the summary of Ministry of Petroleum, and the new gas tariff will be applied from November 01 instead of October 01.

According to the announcement, the ECC also approved the import of 1 million metric tons of wheat, to be imported through the Wheat Trading Corporation during 2023-24.

The Ministry of Finance stated that the private sector will also be encouraged to import wheat, while the ECC has been instructed to conduct a third party audit of the available stocks of wheat in the country.

The Economic Coordination Committee also approved the immediate import of 0.2 million metric tons of urea fertilizer to meet the needs of the Rabi season.

The ECC directed to ensure uninterrupted supply of gas to the fertilizer sector, saying that the provinces would bear the import cost of urea fertilizer.

According to media reports, the purpose of importing 0.1 million metric tons of wheat from abroad is to maintain strategic reserves. Besides this, a technical supplementary grant of Rs48.4 million has also been approved for IRA.

It is pertinent to note that it was proposed to increase the fixed charges of gas meter from Rs10 to Rs400 per month. Approval was sought to raise the price of gas by 172% for domestic consumers.

An increase of Rs2900 per Metric Million British Thermal Unit (MMBtu) has been proposed in the gas tariff of the cement sector. It was proposed to increase the price from Rs1500 to Rs4400 per MMBtu for the cement sector.

An increase of Rs950 per MMBtu has been proposed in the tariff of export industries. It was proposed to increase the tariff of export industrialists by Rs2500, tariff of non-export industries by Rs1400, gas price for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) by Rs2595 per MMBtu.

Similarly, it was proposed to set the gas tariff for CNG sector at Rs4400, whereas the electricity prices for industries and commercial restaurants would remain the same.