The federal government on Thursday through a notification issued by the Ministry of Finance announced a Re1 increase in the price of petrol for the month of November.

The price of petrol was increased from Rs113.24 to Rs114.24 per litre, as per the recommendations of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA).

High speed diesel (HSD) price was increased by Rs0.27 per litre as it went up from Rs127.14 per litre to Rs127.41 per litre.

The prices of kerosene and light diesel oil (LDO) saw a reduction of Rs2.39 and Rs6.56 respectively. Kerosene, this month, will be priced at Rs97.18 and light diesel oil at Rs85.33.

A day earlier, an OGRA official had said that the government will be losing only about Rs650 million if it keeps the prices largely unchanged for next month, but will earn a lot of goodwill at a time when opposition parties are holding big protest rallies.

The government has begun increasing petroleum levy rates to partially offset a revenue shortfall of over Rs113 billion faced by the Federal Board of Revenue in the first quarter of the current fiscal year.

The levy remains in the federal kitty unlike the GST that goes to the divisible pool, of which about 57 per cent is grabbed by the provinces.

Petrol and HSD are the products that generate much of the revenue for the government due to their massive and yet growing consumption in the country. About 800,000 tonnes of HSD are sold every month in the country against a monthly consumption of around 700,000 tonnes of petrol. The sales of kerosene oil and LDO are generally less than 10,000 tonnes per month.