Govt raises HSD price by Rs4 per litre

The government has increased the price of high speed diesel (HSD) by Rs4 per litre effective December 1, 2020 (today), the Ministry of Finance said in a statement issued on Monday.

However, the price of other products including petrol, kerosene oil and light diesel oil (LDO) have been kept unchanged.

The new price of HSD after the raise is Rs105.43 per litre from Rs 101.43 per litre.

In the statement, the finance ministry noted that the government endeavoured to provide maximum relief to the people by keeping the prices of petrol, SKO and LDO same for the next 15 days.

“However, due to significant increase in the international price of HSD, the price of HSD has been increased for the same period,” the Finance Division said in the statement. The HSD is a major source to generate revenue through petroleum levy along with the petrol.

The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) also notified an increase in the rate of commercial and domestic LPG cylinders in the wake of international price hike and surge in demand of gas in current winter.

On Monday, in a monthly review, the Ogra notified an increase of Rs2 per kg for the month of December. The price of domestic cylinder has been raised by Rs23 and commercial cylinder by Rs88. The production cost also recorded an increase of Rs1,658 metric ton.

The price of LPG domestic cylinder will be Rs1,553 instead of Rs1,530 whereas the price of commercial cylinder also increased to Rs5,976 from Rs 5,888. The production cost increased from Rs71,177 to Rs72,835 per ton. The international market also witnessed an increase of CP $437 to $457.

The country imported 360,285 metric tons LPG in addition to 603,997 metric tons of domestic production.

On November 16, the federal government had slashed the prices of petrol and HSD by up to Rs1.79 per litre. The government had cut the prices of petrol and diesel by Rs1.73 and Rs1.79 per litre, respectively. The price of petrol was reduced from Rs102.40 per litre to 100.67 while HSD to Rs101.43 from Rs103.22 per litre.

However, there was no change in the prices of kerosene oil and light diesel oil.