With the Opposition parties stalling the Parliament over price rise, oil minister Murli Deora today said that the hike in domestic LPG rates translated into less than a rupee per day burden on consumers and 50 paisa a day for PDS kerosene users.
"No government can survive if they don't know the feeling of the voters. We want the people and the Opposition parties to understand the compulsions under which we took this decision and the minimal impact it will have on people," he said in New Delhi.
Describing the claims made by the critics of the June 25 decision as exaggeration, he said that the Rs35 increase in the price of LPG cylinders translated into an additional burden of less than a rupee per day, considering that a 14.2-kg cylinder of domestic gas lasts 30-35 days.
The Rs3 a litre hike in kerosene translated into an additional burden of 50 paisa per day for a household using 5 litres a month of PDS kerosene.
In a tongue-in-cheek comment, Deora said that he met a friend from one of the Left parties this morning and explained the compulsions that led to the price hike.
"It is very difficult to show reason to Communists. God knows if he understood what I said," he said speaking at the signing of the contracts for coal-bed methane blocks awarded in the fourth round late last year.
The hike had become necessary as the difference between the retail selling price and the cost of production had become unmanageable.
"We have kept the burden on the poor man the minimal. The talk of the hike breaking the back of the poor and common man is nothing but exaggeration," he said.
A united Opposition for the third day today stalled the proceedings in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, forcing adjournment of both the Houses for the day without transacting much business. Alongside the hike in LPG and kerosene rates, the prices of petrol were freed from government control, leading to an increase in the rates by Rs 3.50 per litre in Delhi from June 26. Diesel prices were increased by only Rs 2 per litre, in preparation for an eventual freeing of prices.
"The then petroleum minister Ram Naik (during the NDA government) raised the price of PDS kerosene from Rs2.52 per litre in January, 1998, to Rs9 per litre in March, 2002," he said. "This hike was 258 per cent, even though crude oil prices rose by just 147% during the period."
The Congress-led UPA government did not increase kerosene prices for the past six years, despite the price of crude oil (the raw material for making petrol, diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene) more than doubling from $36 a barrel in May, 2004, to $78.
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