The government has announced reduction in petroleum prices up to Rs 2.90 per liter for the month of December.
According to a statement issued by the finance ministry here on Saturday, the government has decided to decrease price of High Speed Diesel by Rs 2.4 and the new price of the product would be Rs 125.01 per liter.
Similarly the price of MS petrol has also been cut by Rs 0.25 per litre from Rs 114.24 to Rs 123.99 per litre. The price of kerosene oil has been cut by Rs 0.83 while that of light diesel oil reduced by Rs 2.9 per litre. The new prices for kerosene oil and light diesel oil for the month of December has been fixed at Rs 96.35 and Rs 83.43 per litre respectively.
The statement said the government has decided to decrease the prices of petroleum products to provide relief to the consumers.
Last month’s hike in prices was attributed to the government seeking to generate an additional revenue of about Rs 700 million.
The government had begun increasing petroleum levy rates over the past few months to partially offset a revenue shortfall of over Rs 113 billion faced by the Federal Board of Revenue in the first quarter of the current fiscal year.
The levy remains in the federal kitty unlike the GST that goes to the divisible pool, of which about 57 per cent is grabbed by the provinces.
Petrol and HSD are the products that generate much of the revenue for the government due to their massive and yet growing consumption in the country. About 800,000 tonnes of HSD is sold every month in the country against a monthly consumption of around 700,000 tonnes of petrol. The sales of kerosene oil and LDO are generally less than 10,000 tonnes per month.
