Strike threatened: ‘Rs26 per litre of petrol is govt tax’

KARACHI: The All Pakistan Transporters and Traders’ Alliance (APTTA) threatened to launch a countrywide protest on Monday, unless petroleum prices are reduced by 30 per cent and are frozen at that level for the next three years. The APTTA noted that the government was charging Rs26 as the tax on a single litre of petroleum. Hafizul Haq Hassanzai, head of the inter-provincial bus owners association and president of the Karachi Rickshaw Taxi Association, said that the government frequently increased petroleum prices on the pretext of hike in global oil prices, but there was no justification for jacking up the prices of natural gas, which is a domestic product.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2012.