ISLAMABAD - Oil and gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra), in a heart-winning move of providing relief to the hard-pressed consumers bearing skyrocketing prices of the commodity, has issued a notification of decrease in the prices of LPG by Rs27/kg for July.

Oil and gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) while deciding the reasonable consumer prices of Liquefied Petroleum gas (LPG) for July has determined the reasonable maximum consumer prices of 11.8kg cylinder including distributor margin of Rs70/11.8kg cylinder for all the urban and rural areas of the country. Due to higher transportation cost in AJK, FATA and Northern Areas, Rs30/11.8kg cylinder will be admissible.
In accordance with Ogra notification of LPG prices for July, reasonable maximum consumer price for 100 per cent locally produced LPG is set at Rs83.30/kg so 11.8kg cylinder will now be available at Rs983 in the country while Rs96.27/kg will be the new price for 100 per cent imported LPG resultantly price of 11.8kg cylinder will stand at Rs1, 136 during July. Further, reasonable price for local and imported mix LPG is set at Rs86.4/kg and 11.8kg cylinder will now be available at Rs1020 in the market.
Ogra has also advised all LPG marketing companies to make available sales invoice/ gate pass on the company printed format clearly mentioning whether the consignment is imported one or local before dispatching the truck from storage and filling points.
Meanwhile, Irfan Khokar of LPG Distributors Association Pakistan has said that LPG marketing companies had ‘illegally’ looted consumers massively during last 4 months. He alleged that LPG marketing companies had ‘illegally’ earned heavy profits worth of Rs2billion and 44 crores from the emptied pockets of poor consumers. While giving details of hefty profits of LPG marketing companies, he said these LPG companies had earned Rs2crores and 40 lakh in a day, while Rs61 crores and 20 lakh in a month and Rs2 billion and 44crores in last four months. He was of the view that as the LPG had been imported to the country in last month so increase in the prices of imported LPG during last four months was illegal.
Over a question relating to the impact of price decline in accordance with prevailing prices of LPG in various cities of the country, he said this time a decline up to Rs40/kg has been granted in the prices of the commodity only to provide relief to the pressed consumers during July in the country.
It is worth mentioning here that LPG consumers largely belonged to the remote areas of the country had been bearing sky high prices from a long time LPG prices that were usually depended on the will of the shop keepers as they charged the consumers at their own will due to absence of uniform prices of the commodity in various parts of the country.