GUJRANWALA, Jan 17: The local chamber of commerce and industry and transporters have strongly protested against an increase in prices of POL products and termed it another mini-budget.

Speaking at a meeting held here on Saturday, GCCI president Shauket Javed and leaders of trade organizations said the government raised the prices of POL products in rupees but lowered only in paisas which was unjustified.

They said the regular hike in prices of petroleum products led to an increase in prices of every commodity, adding to the suffering of the general public.

They demanded that the government should provide relief to the people by withdrawing the recent increase in the prices of petroleum products.

Meanwhile, transporters also resented the increase and demanded that the transport fares should be revised as they were suffering losses.

They threatened that they would enhance the fares arbitrarily if the government did not revise the fares immediately.