The caretaker government on Monday decreased the price of petrol by Rs8 per litre for the next fortnight.

In a notification issued today, the Finance Division said the government decided to reduce the price of petrol for the fortnight starting from January 16 as recomme­nded by the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority.

According to the announcement, the ex-depot price of petrol was cut to Rs259.34 per litre against the previous rate of Rs267.34 per litre.

There was no change in the price of high-speed diesel while no changes were mentioned for the prices of light-diesel oil and kerosene oil.

The government has already achieved a Rs60 per litre petroleum levy — the maximum permissible limit under the law — on both petrol and HSD. The government had set a budget target to collect Rs869 billion as a petroleum levy during the current fiscal year under the commitments made with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) but was hoping the collection to go beyond Rs950bn by the end of June.

Petroleum and electricity prices have been the key drivers of inflation, which clocked in at 29.7pc in December as measured by the Consumer Price Index.

At present, the government is charging about Rs82 per litre tax on both petrol and HSD.

Although the general sales tax on all petroleum products is currently zero, the government is charging Rs60 per litre petroleum development levy on petrol and Rs50 each on HSD, high-octane blending component, and 95 research octane number (RON) petrol