There is this joke going around on social media. A teacher asks a student to translate an Urdu sentence into English. The sentence is ‘Hum bari mushkil mein hain’ (we are facing a lot of difficulties). The student immediately quipped, “we are living in Pakistan”.
Under the current scenario, the boy’s translation makes sense.
Besides, the words of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari are reverberating in one’s mind today. Just before the end of the previous government’s tenure, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman, while speaking at an event, had said that the next eight to 10 months would be very difficult for an average Pakistani. Today his words are making sense, but what’s scary is that just one month has passed since he uttered those words. We still have many months to face this agony. The biggest torment for a common citizen is the fuel cost, which is getting costlier every fortnight and there seems to be no end to it.
Everyone was expecting an increase in fuel cost, but not expecting this exorbitant rise. The latest shock a common struggling man got around midnight was a record increase in petrol price. The caretaker government raised the prices of petrol and high-speed diesel (HSD) by Rs26.02 and Rs17.34 per litre, respectively, taking the price to over Rs330. This is on top of Rs32.41 and Rs38.49 per litre increase in petrol and HSD prices in the last two fortnights since August 15. The combined increase now works out at Rs58.43 and Rs55.83 per litre in just one month.
Fuel prices have gone up by 20 per cent since the interim setup was sworn in. The reason being given for the latest hike in fuel prices is the high cost of petroleum products in the international market. After this raise, a trickle down effect would have been set into motion. Inflation would get a boost as transport cost would rise. Most of the heavy vehicles used for transporting goods run on diesel, which means fruits, vegetables and other eatables would see a hike in prices.
Local transport, mostly rickshaws and many taxis, run on petrol. They would be raising their fare too. In the end, it’s the common man who would suffer. Under the present circumstances, people are getting crushed with the high cost of not living but surviving.
A day earlier, interim Finance Minister Shamshad Akhtar had said that there were some signs of economic recovery and things had started to move in a positive direction. It seems the minister would now be biting her own words. With inflation peaking, petrol price rising and gas tariff to see a raise, what economic recovery can we expect?