LAHORE: Citizens have reacted sharply to the marginal reduction in petroleum product prices, dismissing the government’s announcement as relief in name only and describing it as a joke at the public’s expense.
Residents said the pattern is unmistakable: when the government raises prices, it does so in rupees, but when it reduces them, the cut is confined to a few paisa. A reduction of this size, they argued, will make no meaningful difference to a household’s monthly budget.
According to citizens, petrol is still being sold at more than Rs342 per litre — a price that remains a heavy burden on the purchasing power of the ordinary consumer, particularly for the millions of commuters who depend on motorcycles for daily travel to work.
Consumers also pointed to the asymmetry that follows every price movement. The moment petrol becomes more expensive, they said, transport fares and the prices of essential commodities are raised immediately. But when a reduction is announced, fares do not come down and there is no visible impact on inflation.
That asymmetry is one of the most consistently observed features of Pakistan’s informal transport economy. Rickshaw, van and intra-city bus fares are largely unregulated in practice, and operators adjust upward rapidly in response to fuel increases while rarely reversing course when prices ease. The effect is a ratchet: each fuel increase permanently resets the fare floor.
The same dynamic operates in the goods transport sector, where freight rates absorb diesel increases and pass them into the retail price of vegetables, fruit, flour and packaged goods. Because those adjustments move through several intermediaries before reaching the shelf, they are rarely unwound when input costs fall marginally.
Citizens demanded that the government make a substantial reduction in petroleum product prices in order to provide relief in real terms, rather than announcing token cuts.
Residents said the government has completely failed to deliver relief from rising inflation, and that describing a reduction of a few paisa as relief is no solution to the public’s problems.
The frustration has a clear political dimension. Fuel pricing, the petroleum levy and electricity tariffs have converged into a single grievance that has kept protest camps active on Lahore’s Mall Road for two weeks and has become the organising theme of a nationwide strike call.
The structure of the retail price helps explain why international movements translate so weakly into pump relief. The ex-refinery or import cost is only one component; on top of it sit the petroleum levy, distribution and dealer margins, and freight equalisation. When the levy is fixed in rupee terms per litre, a decline in global crude prices reduces only the portion of the price it does not cover, muting the pass-through to consumers.
Household budgets have absorbed simultaneous pressure from several directions. Alongside fuel, consumers have faced increases in the price of wheat flour, LPG and quarterly electricity adjustment charges — a combination that leaves little room for a sub-one-rupee reduction to register.
For most of the people interviewed, the test is simple and practical: whether the fare charged by the rickshaw at the corner, or the price of a 20-kilogram bag of flour, changes at all. On both counts, they said, nothing has moved.
– Reported by Afshan Rizwan with inputs from News Desk
Leave a Reply