The government has approved an Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) recommendation of upward revision of POL prices, a statement issued by the regulatory authority said on Sunday. The authority has set the revised price of petrol at Rs 86.66 per litre, up from Rs 75.69 per litre. Light diesel oil would sell at Rs 56.50 per litre up from Rs 49.05 per litre. According to new figures, the price of kerosene oil has been fixed at Rs 58.37 per litre from Rs 49.37 per litre, while HOBC is pegged at Rs 96.08 per litre from Rs 88.85 per litre, the statement said. The new price of high-speed diesel would be Rs 64.64 per litre, it added. Effectively, the increase in the prices of the POL prices is: petrol-Rs 10.97 per litre, light diesel oil-Rs 7.45 per litre, high-speed diesel-Rs 9.50, kerosene oil-Rs 8.64 per litre and HOBC-Rs 7.23 per litre. The new prices would be effective from July 21 (Monday), the statement said. An OGRA spokesman said that the government paid Rs 165 billion in subsidy on POL products during the 2007-08 financial year. The government would continue to subsidise the products to facilitate the consumer, he added. The government is providing Rs 33.93 per litre subsidy on kerosene oil, Rs 29.40 per litre on light diesel oil and Rs 35.42 per litre on high-speed diesel. The Finance Ministry had moved a summary on July 14 seeking approval from the prime minister to notify the revised prices on July 15, a source said, but the premier delayed the approval due to his July 19 address to the nation. The government is following commitment made with the World Bank to withdraw the POL subsidy by the end of the year. Subsidy: Presently, the government has allocated Rs 140 billion in subsidy for the petroleum products, the spokesman said, but that would not go beyond this calendar year. It is learnt that the finance managers had informed the government that the foreign reserves would be depleted within two months if the impact of oil-price hike were not passed on to the consumers. The government has set the budgetary price of oil at $110 per barrel for 2008-09 financial year, and any price over that would be passed on to the consumer. The spokesman said that in the international market in the last two years petrol price has jumped by 50 percent, kerosene oil by 66 percent and diesel by 67 percent.