ISLAMABAD/New Delhi - The federal government has upward revised the price of petroleum products and increased the prices of petrol and high-speed diesel (HSD) by Re1 per litre for the month of April.
In sharp contrast, the neighbouring India heavily decreased the petroleum rates on Friday as global prices came down.
The announcement was made by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Friday during a press conference held in Dubai.
Dar is in Dubai where talks between Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are being held since the last three days.
The minister further said that the prices of kerosene oil and light diesel oil (LDO) would remain unchanged.
The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) in its summary to the Ministry of Petroleum and Ministry of Finance recommended an increase of Rs2.28 per litre in the prices of petrol and Rs2.04 per litre in high-speed diesel (HSD).
Similarly, Rs13.76 per litre hike was recommended in the price of kerosene oil and Rs7.75 per litre increase in light diesel oil.
The finance minister said that the government would absorb an additional burden of Rs3 billion for the month of April by not transferring the full impact of the prices of petrol and diesel to the consumers.
He maintained that the government was trying to increase petroleum prices by minimum possible amount.
With the Re1 increase the price of petrol would be increase to Rs74 from Rs73 per litre, while HSD will be increased to Rs84 per litre from the current Rs83 per litre.
Dar said that for the past 11 months the government had been passing on the impact of petroleum price partially to the consumers and loss of revenue on this account had reached to around Rs97 billion.
Monitoring Desk adds: The price of petrol in India is cut by Rs 3.77 per litre and that of diesel by Rs 2.91 a litre, the first change in rates in two-and-a-half months, reported NDTV.
State-owned oil firms cut rates with effect from Friday midnight. Petrol currently costs Rs 71.14 a litre in Delhi and diesel is priced at Rs 59.02 per litre. Petrol price will be cut by Rs 3.77 per litre, excluding state levies, said Indian Oil Corp (IOC). Actual decrease will be larger after taking into account the local levies.
Similarly, diesel rate was cut by Rs. 2.91, excluding state levies. Petrol will now cost Rs. 66.29 in Delhi while diesel will be sold at Rs 55.61.
Rates were last revised on January 16 when price of petrol went up by 54 paise. On that date, diesel rates were hiked by Rs 1.20 a litre.
"The current level of international product prices of petrol and diesel and rupee-dollar exchange rate warrant decrease in selling price of petrol and diesel, the impact of which is being passed on to the consumers with this price revision," IOC said in a statement.