ISLAMABAD – There is a price hike in international oil market, the oil marketing companies (OMCs) say, and the government won’t cut its unreasonably high taxes on the POL products; hence the defenceless consumers have to pay more when they get to the filling stations to fill their vehicle tanks today. And if they can’t pay the new price, they have one choice – get less fuel. Yes, the government has once again jacked up the prices of petroleum products –petrol by Rs6.82 per litre the High Octane Blending Content (HOBC) by Rs1.50 and kerosene oil by Rs0.62 a litre. Also, under the so-called price parity formula, the prices of CNG too have been increased up to Rs6.25/kg.Among the POL products, diesel is an only exception for which slight price cut has been made. The price of HSD (High Speed Diesel), widely used in public transport and agriculture sectors, has been cut by Rs1.75 per litre, while LDO (Light Diesel Oil), used for industrial purposes, after a cut of Rs0.14/litre would now be available at Rs99.27 in the running week.Overall, this price increase for three petroleum products will add to the miseries to the inflation-hit masses who are already bearing heavy brunt of sky rocketing prices of essential commodities coupled with unscheduled long hours of loadshedding, besides of the heavy rains that triggered flooding in many parts of the country.Since the PPP-led coalition government is currently implementing a much contentious mechanism of weekly basis price review, now being determined by the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs), the already hard pressed consumers would face a third revision in oil prices during this month, thanks to the myopic vision of the government gurus.Thus, a jump in international oil market, which rose by $2 per barrel from $113 to $115 lately, has been imputed to this hike in local petroleum products prices. So, for the running week, the new price of Petrol is Rs106.72/litre and HOBC is Rs137.96/litre.The price of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), which under the parity price formula has to be maintained at 60 percent of the Petrol price, has been increased up to Rs6.25 per kilogram. The CNG price has been raised to Rs97.69 from Rs91.45 kg for Region-1, which comprises Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Potohar Region (Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Gujar Khan); and Rs89.25 from Rs83.55 per kg in Region-2, which comprises Sindh and Punjab (excluding Potohar Region). Oil and gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) has issued a notification to this effect.Last week the government did not grant its approval to pass on the impact of the high cost of an imported cargo of petrol of Pakistan State Oil (PSO) to the consumers, in a bid to provide relief to the hard-pressed consumers. The decision resulted in the decrease of Petrol price by Rs4.65 per litre and CNG by Rs4.27 per kg on September 10. However, through imposition of weekly price mechanism following the decision of economic coordination committee (ECC) of the cabinet, the government has now withdrawn that relief.Also, the government had raised the price of HOBC by Rs3.27 per litre on last Sunday. This product is not used on a large-scale basis and is only produced by Pak Arab Refinery Limited (Parco). But, the government had also raised the price of Kerosene oil by Rs1.85 per litre last Sunday, which is referred to as the fuel of the poor as it is widely used for cooking purposes in remote areas of the country where LPG is not available.