The federal government is eyeing to extort billions of rupees from the masses by imposing heavy levy duties on petroleum products in the FY-2023-24 budget, the 24NewsHD TV channel reported on Friday.

According to the budget documents, the government has set the target of collection of Rs 869 billion in the next fiscal year in petroleum levy.

The government has proposed raising the levy rate by an additional Rs10 per liter to collect around Rs755 billion from this source during the fiscal year 2023-24. The current rate of PDL stands at Rs50 per liter.

 The budget documents say that the government is targeting to collect Rs 75 billion as royalty on natural gas.  It also aims to collect Rs 40 billion as the National Gas Development Surcharge during the next FY-2023-24 budget.

The government also proposes to collect Rs 35 billion in the head of windfall tax levy on crude oil. Rs 50 billion is targeted to achieve in gas infrastructure development cess. The budget has also aimed to get the target of collection of Rs 12 billion in the form of the petroleum levy on LPG.

An amount of Rs 29. 43 billion has been proposed to collect during the next financial year in the head of the mobile handset levy.

The budget also proposed to collect Rs 72.59 billion for the renewal of PTA licenses.

Likewise, a target of Rs 7.20 has been set in the budget to collect from the regulatory authorities in the form of surplus profit.

 Reporter: Awais Kiyani