Ogra notifies up to 143pc increase in gas tariff

ISLAMABAD: The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) on Thursday notified an increase in gas tariff up to 143 percent, effective from September 27.

According to the notification, gas price for CNG sector has been increased by 40 percent.

For power generation companies, the gas price has been hiked by 57 percent, while for the rest of the industries it went up by 40 per cent.

For fertiliser companies, gas prices have been increased by 40 to 50 percent.

The per-unit price for consumers with 200 MMBTU use a month has been increased by 20 percent. The tariff has been increased by 25 percent on use of 300 MMBTU a month.

Read More: Increase in gas tariff not to hit middle class, says petroleum minister

For customers with consumption of 400 MMBTU and 500 MMBTU a month, the prices have been hiked by 30 and 143 per cent respectively.

CNG Association Chairman Ghayyas Paracha protested against the price hike and termed it injustice with people.

Demanding from the government to review its decision, he said the hike in tariff would cause up to Rs15 per kg increase in CNG price.

Last month, Petroleum Minister Chaudhry Ghulam Sarwar said the government had divided consumers into three categories and domestic consumers will not be hit hard by the hike in gas tariff.

“The consumers were previously divided into three slabs i.e lower middle class, middle class, upper class and there was no pricing distinction; now we have just increased the price for middle and lower middle class’ by 15 to 20 percent which means if they paid 252 rupees in past, now they will pay Rs275 only,” said the minister.