Pakistan offers 30 days of free public transport following 40% petrol hike
Passengers board a government bus in Islamabad on Friday.
Photo: AFP State-run public transport in Pakistan’s capital and most populous province will be free for the coming month, officials said, after the government drastically raised fuel prices due to the Iran war.
The announcement came after street protests and long queues of motorcycles at fuel stations triggered by a late-night decision on Thursday to impose a 42.7 per cent rise in the price of petrol to 485 rupees (US$1.70) per litre.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif back-pedalled late on Friday, saying he was reducing the levy and setting petrol prices at 378 rupees per litre. “This decrease will be applicable for at least one month,” he said in a televised national address. “I promise I will not rest until your life is back to normal.” Sharif did not reduce the price for diesel, which will remain at 520 rupees per litre following a 54.9 per cent price hike.
A metro train glides along an elevated track in Lahore, Punjab, on Friday.
Photo: AFP “All public transport in Islamabad will be made free of cost for the general public for the next 30 days, starting tomorrow,” Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi wrote on social media on Friday.
The government would bear a burden of 350 million rupees, he added.
The chief minister of Pakistan’s most populous province, Punjab, also lifted the cost of travel for state-run public transport, and announced “targeted subsidies” for trucks and buses.
Maryam Nawaz Sharif urged operators not to pass on increased costs to passengers, adding: “We promise to relieve the public of economic burden as soon as conditions improve.” In Sindh, the provincial government in Pakistan’s biggest city, Karachi, announced similar subsidies for motorcyclists and small farmers.
The US-Israel war on Iran, launched on February 28, has plunged the Middle East into conflict, with Iranian retaliatory strikes hitting targets across the Gulf and virtually freezing shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
The key waterway normally sees about a fifth of the world’s energy supplies pass through it, much of it bound for Asia.
Islamabad has unveiled a raft of austerity measures designed to save fuel, including moving many government offices to a four-day work week, extending school holidays and moving some classes online.
Pakistan is classified as a lower-middle-income country, with roughly 25 per cent of its 240 million population living in poverty, as per World Bank data.
The government hiked fuel p
原文链接: 南华早报