National Assembly's Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Resources discussed increase in the POL prices in a meeting held here on Friday. Chairperson of the committee, Noorjahan Panezai presided over the meeting.
The committee was informed that the Oil Company Advisory Committee (OCAC) was authorised to review and fix the prices of the petroleum products on fortnightly basis under the vigilance of the government but now Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) would fix the prices of the petroleum' products from April 1.
The committee was informed that if Rs 1 was increased on one particular item, the government would earn profit to the tune of Rs, 900 million.
Even now the government was selling the petroleum products at less than the rates prevailing in the international market.
During the last financial year, the government collected only Rs 6.6 billion against the budgeted target of Rs 47.5 billion on account of Petroleum Development Levy (PDL).
The government had to suffer accumulated loss of about Rs 64 billion (Including around Rs 22 billion Price Differential Claim) till March 2006 to protect the consumer from the burden of high prices of petroleum products in international market.
Keeping in view the continuous increasing trend of prices of petroleum products in international market, the government decided to protect the consumer from the impact of high prices and capped the domestic sale prices during the period May-December 2004, April-June 2005, July 16-August 16 2005, September 16 - October 2005 to March 2006.
The members of the standing committee unanimously expressed their deep concern about the perpetual increase in the prices of petroleum products and recommended that the government should control this increase and provide relief to the common people of the country.
The committee was informed that the government was fully conscious of the concerns of the public and all necessary measures were being taken to protect the consumer interest as well as the government revenue position.
Besides the Chairperson, the meeting was also attended by Khawaja Sheraz Mehmood, MNA, Chaudhry Liaquat Abbas Bhatti, MNA, Mrs Rahila Yahaya Munawar, MNA, Mst. Rubina Shaheen Wattoo, MNA, Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri, MNA, Pir Syed Fazal Ali Shah Jeelani, MNA, Raja Pervez Ashraf, MNA, Rana Mehmood-ul-Hassan, MNA, Haji Gul Muhammad Dummar, MNA, Bilal Ahmad Virk and the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources was represented by the Mir Muhammad Naseer Mengal, Minister of State.
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