New Delhi, May 11: The meeting of the ministerial panel scheduled Wednesday to consider a possible rise in fuel prices has been deferred till next week, Petroleum Minister S. Jaipal Reddy said here Tuesday.
“The Empowered Group of Ministers headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was to meet tomorrow evening. It has been put off,” Reddy told reporters here.
He said the meeting has been postponed to “accommodate some ministers”. “It could be anytime on May 17 or 18.”
Mukherjee will be busy in the aftermath of the results of the five state assembly elections which will be declared May 13, said officials.
According to sources, there are proposals to increase the price of diesel by about Rs.4 per litre. Similarly, cooking gas cylinder could become costlier by about Rs.20.
Eighty percent of India’s fuel consumption is met through imports. Oil marketing companies have to face losses as they sell subsidised fuel products.
According to the ministry, the companies are suffering daily losses of Rs.495 crore on the subsidised sale of diesel, kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
The oil majors were losing Rs.16.17 per litre of diesel, Rs.28.28 per litre of kerosene and Rs.329.73 on every cooking gas cylinder.
In June last year, the government had allowed oil marketing companies to set the price of petrol as per the market situation. Oil companies had hiked the price of petrol by Rs.3 per litre – a increase of over five percent, from Dec 16, 2010.
The second and last time there was a price hike was in January, when oil companies had raised the price of petrol by four to two percent. However, they are still losing about Rs.8 per litre of petrol.
Since then, there has been steady increase in the international prices, with the Indian crude basket priced on Monday at $108.62 per barrel. The average of the previous fortnight from April 16-30 stood at $119.4 per barrel.
The last time the monthly average was above $100 level was in August 2008, when the crude basket price was calculated at $113.05 per barrel.
–Agencies