KARACHI, Dec 20: Retailers charged on Thursday Rs65 a kg for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), compared to Rs62 on Wednesday and Rs56-58 on Monday.

One retailer said that distributors were charging more and they were left with no option but to pass on the increase to consumers.

Rickshaw and taxi drivers are major LPG consumers and have already started charging higher fares.

Small vehicles transporting sacrificial animals mostly consumed LPG and they were also charging more.

About 23 LPG marketing companies had announced rates in newspapers on Thursday, publicly asking consumers not to pay more than Rs57 a kg at retail outlets.

But a spokesman of the LPG Marketing Association of Pakistan said retailers and distributors were continuing to make abnormally high profits.

The maximum retail price should not exceed Rs57 a kg, but the rate in Lahore on Thursday was Rs74-75 a kg, he said.

The association had asked consumers to file complaints to the marketing companies and the government, saying the companies would take legal “action against hoarders, profiteers and black marketeers”.

However, a day before Eid, neither the marketing companies nor the government appeared to be doing anything to bring the LPG prices down.

The spokesman of LPG marketing body, Fasih Ahmed, rejected recent claims by some LPG distributors and, citing figures given by the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Resources in a presentation given to President Pervez Musharraf on Dec 13, said that domestic production was stable at 1,625 metric tons a day.

Chairman of the LPG Distribution Association of Pakistan Hadi Khan said that producers had reduced the production to 1,500-1,550 a day from 1,750-1,800 tons a day 10 days ago.