POL PRICES BE WITHDRAWN

MULTAN,March 2nd:Citizens, industrialists and businessmen condemned the increase in prices of petroleum products as well as the proposed four to five day load shedding for the industrial sector, and demanded immediate withdrawal of increase in POL prices.They said that increase in petrol prices would indirectly increase prices of all products in the city. A citizen, Amjad Bukhari said, “The prices in Pakistan are already higher than those in international markets, and increasing the prices in such a situation is totally unjust.” Another citizen, Mazhar Javed, said, “Instead of rules being monitored by our own government, the price system of petrol and electricity had been handed over to the IMF and the World Bank, which is further making the country a hostage to the foreign agencies.Industrial workers have outrightly rejected the huge increase in the petroleum prices and demanded the government to withdraw the hike immediately.The demand was raised at a meeting on Wednesday.Blow: The participants, while strongly reacting to the “anti-industry” and “anti-public” decision, said that the government had never bothered to pass on the benefit of decrease in oil prices in international market to the local masses and earned billion of rupees, which was sheer injustice. They said that the industry was already facing a number of challenges, including gas load shedding and bad law and order situation, adding that at a time when the whole industry was suffering due to energy crisis and high cost of doing business, the raise in POL prices was bound to deal a further blow to the industry.It is note worthy that the new price of petrol is Rs 80.19 per litre with an increase of Rs 7.23, HOBC Rs 95.25 per litre with an increase of Rs 8.58, High Speed Diesel (HSD) Rs 86.09 per litre with a surge of Rs 7.76, Light Diesel Oil (LDO) Rs 73.21 per litre with a raise of Rs 6.6, kerosene oil Rs 77.95 per litre with a surge of Rs 7 per litre, JP-1 (local) Rs 74.37 per litre with an increase of Rs 5.89 per litre, JP-4 Rs 68.45 per litre with a raise of Rs 3.34 per litre and JP-8 Rs 74.07 per litre with an increase of Rs 5.88 per litre.