Govt jacks up levy on high-speed diesel by Rs5 per litre

Islamabad: The interim government raised the high-speed diesel (HSD) fee by Rs 5 ahead of the first round of review negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), depriving the public of much-needed respite.

The levy has increased from Rs 55 per liter to Rs 60 per litre.

The petroleum levy, remains at Rs. 60 per litre of petrol.

The cost of the HSD may have decreased if the government had not raised the price.

Earlier, the Government has announced on Tuesday that the prices of petrol and diesel will remain unchanged for the next 15 days.

The federal government decided to maintain the petroleum products prices for the next 15 days.

According to a notification from the Ministry of Finance, the price of petrol is Rs283.38 per litre and Rs303.18 per litre for HSD. The rates will remain in place till November 15.

The government, however, also cut the prices of light diesel by Rs3.40 per litre and kerosene oil by Rs3.82 per litre for the next fortnight. After the reduction in the prices of petroleum products, the rate of kerosene oil has dropped to Rs211.03 per litre and light diesel oil Rs189.46 per litre.

The interim government is charging zero general sales tax (GST) on all petroleum products while the rate of petroleum levy (PL) on petrol is Rs60 per litre.

In the last fortnight, the government had dropped the petrol price by Rs40 per litre and HSD by Rs15 per litre.

The federal cabinet had Monday sharply increased the natural gas tariff by up to 172% for domestic consumers, tandoors, and general industries, including export-oriented sectors, captive power plants, CNG and IPPs, and commercial sectors.

The new prices will be effective from November 1. The substantial increase was aimed to comply with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) demand, which asked the government to increase gas tariffs to control the gas sector’s circular debt, which is Rs2.1 trillion.

The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) also reduced the rates of liquified petroleum gas (LPG) for November.

The rate has been dropped by Rs9.69 per kg to 251.03, a notification from the regulator said.

It added that as a result of the decrease, the rate for domestic cylinders has fallen by Rs117.47. Now, it said, an 11kg cylinder will be available at Rs2962.17.