ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Friday announced to reduce prices of petrol and high-speed diesel by Rs1.5 per litre for the month of July starting from today.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar announced that the government has decreased the price of petrol by Rs1.5 per litre as against the OGRA proposal of reducing the price by Rs3.3 per litre.
Similarly, the government has also reduced the price of diesel by Rs1.5 per litre as against Rs2.73 per litre proposed by the OGRA.
Dar said that the government has decided to keep kerosene oil and light diesel oil (LDO) prices unchanged at Rs44 per litre for the month of July. The OGRA had suggested a Rs11 per litre increase in the price of kerosene and Rs7 per litre increase in the price LDO.
Dar said that the government will have to bear a loss of Rs 2.4 billion in oil subsidy. After the approval, the petrol price has gone down to Rs71.3 from Rs72.8 per litre. Similarly, the diesel price has also gone down to Rs79.9 from Rs 81.40 per litre.
He said that the government had absorbed the considerable impact of prices increase since April 2016 and has suffered considerable losses in revenue in the last financial year. “Only partial increases have been passed on in the recent months,” Dar said.