Petrol Subsidy App in Pakistan: How to Register and Get Your Petrol Relief Code
There is no petrol subsidy app. That is worth knowing early, because plenty of people are wasting an evening hunting for one in the Play Store.
The government’s petrol relief runs on SMS. You text the short code 9771 from an ordinary phone, no internet needed, and in return you get Rs100 off every litre of petrol.
This guide covers who qualifies, how to sign up, how the petrol relief code works at the pump, and the problems people have actually run into.
What the Petrol Subsidy App scheme gives you
Petrol prices jumped sharply over the summer. By the government’s own numbers, petrol rose about Rs72 a litre between 1 July and 11 September, which it blames on the Gulf crisis.
The Prime Minister’s relief scheme was launched on 13 September as a response, starting in Islamabad and going nationwide, including AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan, from midnight on 16 September.
If you qualify, the discount is Rs100 per litre:
- Motorcycles, rickshaws and Qingqis: up to 20 litres a month, so up to Rs2,000
- Cars up to 800cc: up to 30 litres a month, so up to Rs3,000
Only one vehicle per person counts.
Who can get the government petrol subsidy
The scheme is meant for the people who feel petrol prices most: bike riders, rickshaw drivers and owners of small cars. Two rules were relaxed in the first week.
Vehicles registered from 1 January 2006 are now accepted, and the prime minister also ordered 20-year-old bikes and rickshaws to be included. You also don’t have to be the registered owner. If the vehicle is with you and you hold its documents, that is enough.
One thing to know before you start: the vehicle has to exist in the provincial excise records. Rickshaw and loader owners whose vehicles were never registered with the excise department have had trouble, and the government said rickshaw registration had started so they could join.
How to register for the petrol subsidy scheme
Registration is free, and you only do it once.
- Use a SIM that is registered in your own name.
- Send one SMS to 9771 with your CNIC number, vehicle number, the first letter of your province, and the vehicle’s registration date, all written together with no spaces.
- The system checks your vehicle against excise records.
- A confirmation SMS comes back when it works.
The exact format matters, and a wrong space or a missing digit is the most common reason it fails.
Look at the official 9771 instructions before you send. Nobody needs to be paid for this, and the government has warned people not to hand their CNIC to agents who offer to do it for a fee.
How to get your petrol relief code at the pump
Registering does not give you cheap petrol by itself. Each time you want the discount you need a token, which people call the petrol relief code.
Before you leave for the pump, text TOK to 9771. A token message comes back for your registered vehicle. Show that message at the station and the pump applies the discount.
For bikes and rickshaws the relief comes as up to four tokens a month, each worth Rs500, and the old five-litre limit per token was dropped. So if two litres cost you Rs780 and you use a token, you pay Rs280. Car owners get tokens on a schedule, ten litres every ten days.
The pump will only fill the vehicle that is linked to your token. The pump owners’ association has said clearly that you can’t use it for a friend’s car or a bike that isn’t registered.
Where people are getting stuck
It hasn’t been smooth for everyone. In the first days, readers told Daily Pakistan that their messages to 9771 either never left the phone or came back as “registration failed” with no explanation. Many weren’t sure of the format at all.
The government has responded by making the SMS service free, allowing token redemption by SMS at pumps with no internet, and setting up a helpline on 9771 along with a 24-hour control room at the IT Ministry.
A separate complaints portal is also being built by the Pakistan Digital Authority, though I couldn’t find a launch date.
On the numbers, Express Tribune reported on 29 September that about 7.6 million people had registered and 7.71 million tokens had been redeemed. Ten days earlier the government had counted about 1.75 million registrations, so uptake has been quick.
What about the “786” number and other websites?
A number of websites mention 786 or ask you to download something. In the official reports I checked, the only number for registration, tokens and complaints is 9771.
Many of the sites that rank for “petrol subsidy check online” are private and not run by the government. Don’t send your CNIC or vehicle details anywhere else.
That also covers phrases like “free petrol scheme”. The petrol isn’t free. It is Rs100 off per litre.
How long will the scheme last?
Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik said on 28 September that the subsidy could run for up to ten months if needed, and that any fall in international oil prices would be passed on to consumers. He put the cost at Rs35 to 40 billion a month.
