Afan Aziz, President of Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) has expressed concern over rising prices of petroleum products, especially diesel, which is adversely affecting the economy of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). He said the diesel price had gone up to Rs 98 per litre from Rs 78 showing an increase of 25 percent while the price of petrol increased to Rs 88 from Rs 73 per litre, registering an increase of 20 percent.
Talking to a group of journalists here on Friday, he said KP province's strength in hydropower and natural gas is shared by other provinces while the policymakers made no joint efforts to share its weaknesses for being far away from the seaport. Aziz said that the province was seriously confronted with industrial crisis due to inequitable resources' distribution.
He said that the entire nation is using country's resources, particularly gas and electricity produced by KP. He, however, added that Khyber Pakthunkhwa was paying the same prices as paid by the other provinces for electricity and gas despite the fact that these energies were produced by the province. He said the KP is far away from the seaport, due to which traders and industrialists belonging to the KP have to pay huge transportation charges which results in increasing cost of production.
He said the cost of crude oil in the international market had risen to $100 from $90 per barrel--a 10 percent increase. The hike in diesel price has been disproportionate which has increased the cost of production in KP more than any other province of Pakistan. The SCCI president said there was a misconception that diesel rate in India is as higher than in Pakistan. He said the rail system in India is excellent, cheap and efficient as compared to Pakistan, which leads to low freight charges and counters growing price of diesel and oil in India. He added that railway's inefficiency in Pakistan has rendered it ineffective as a source of cheap transport for the last 3 decades, impacting KP cost of doing business more than any other part of Pakistan.