LAHORE — The Pakistan Railways and Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) are going to provide relief to their passengers in fare after a cut in petrol and diesel prices on July 15.
The Pakistan Railways will cut the fare for economy class passengers on all express trains by 10 percent, while the PIA will give a 10 percent discount to passengers of both economy and business classes on domestic flights for the next 30 days.
Federal Minister for Aviation and Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique took to Twitter to make this announcement on Saturday. He said in the video announcement that 94 percent of the railway passengers were using economy class. As for the PIA, he said, 90 percent of the air travellers were using economy class.
Rafique said that a notification in this regard would be issued on July 17. After this, he said, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of Pakistan would ask the private airlines to give cut the airfare. He said he was hopeful that provincial governments would ask transport companies to cut the fare after a decrease in petrol and diesel prices.
پٹرولیم مصنوعات کی قیمتوں میں کمی کے بعد پاکستان ریلویز کی اکانومی کلاس اور پی آٸ اے کی اندرون ملک تمام پروازوں پر کرایوں میں 10 فی صد رعایت کا اعلان
انشا اللّٰہ آج رات بارہ بجے کے بعد عملدرآمد شروع ھو جائیگا pic.twitter.com/qzt2foOvmR
— Khawaja Saad Rafique (@KhSaad_Rafique) July 16, 2022
Pakistan has seen an unprecedented rise in petrol and diesel prices since April 10, the day when Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted from power by the current ruling coalition of 11 political parties through a vote of no-confidence.
The new coalition government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has been walking a tight rope since then with the Pakistani rupee see a free fall against the US dollar, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) refusing to revive the stalled loan programme and the fuel prices spiralling out of control due to domestic and international factors.
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However, the incumbent government announced recently that it has reached an agreement with the IMF on the loan programme and would get the loan amount of more than $1 billion soon.