The Senate was informed Thursday that the government intends to reduce General Sales Tax on petroleum products to provide relief to the masses and consultation is underway with the provinces in this regard.
Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr. Asim Hussain told the House during question hour that out of the total GST collected seventy percent goes to the provinces while thirty percent to the federation. He said prices of POL products are increased with international hike but are not lowered when they go down in the international market, which adds burden on the consumers. He said the issue would be raised at the next ECC meeting and effort would be made to adjust prices after every 15 days.
The Minister said that the petroleum levy is collected by the federation under the finance bill. He said in this tax the part of the federation is seventy percent while thirty percent is given as subsidy.
He informed the House that purchase cost of petrol is 67.71 rupees per liter while consumer price is 87.75 rupees. He said the diesel is purchased at a rate of 73.1 rupees and consumer price is 95.78 rupees per liter.
He said the work on the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project is in progress and will be completed by 2014. He said the completion of the project will reduce gas shortage in the country.
He said Qatar has offered LNG at market rates which would be considered by the government.
Dr. Asim Hussain said that a number of projects are underway in the country to overcome the growing demand of the petroleum products.
He said negotiations are underway between Pakistan State Oil and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government for the establishment of refineries in the province.
The Minister said under a 2.5 billion dollar project, work is underway for drilling five hundred exploratory wells in the Sindh province.