GOVERNMENT on Wednesday jacked up the prices of petroleum products by over Rs 5 per litre. After the fresh hike, the petrol price has gone up from Rs 118.30 to Rs 123.30 per litre. Similarly the price of HSD goes up to Rs 120.04 from Rs 115.03 per litre.
Indeed this increase had become unavoidable following increase in the oil prices in international market as well as recent record depreciation of rupee against dollar.
However having said so, the increase in petroleum prices will further push up the prices of essential commodities.
The government is already struggling to contain the inflation and further increase in prices will only dent its popularity.
Even before the announcement of latest prices of petroleum, the transport sector had substantially increased their fares a day before.
The fact of the matter is that it is only the fixed income groups be it in the private or public sector which suffer the most because of price hike.
Traders enhance the prices of their products when they see rise in inflation. Similar is the case with the services and transport sectors.
The government must not sit back but come forward in a big way in support of fixed income groups by enhancing their salaries so that they could cope with the current situation.
A disparity allowance of twenty five percent and then ten percent ad hoc relief was announced for public sector employees in the budget but it is regrettable that several departments still have not extended this relief to their employees under one pretext or the other.
This is only adding to their woes and the employees of these departments are compelled to think, “Where is the justice”? Prime Minister Imran Khan should personally look into this matter and direct the Finance Ministry to expedite the process of releasing funds to these departments so that they could give pay raise to the employees as announced by the government. Then, the house hiring ceiling is enhanced every three years.
The employees are still awaiting good news on that front. Enhancing their house hiring ceiling at this point in time will provide much needed respite to the employees which must not be withheld but approved and notified immediately.
