Fuel price hike won't affect consumers: Murli Deora

Ruling out any rollback in cooking gas and kerosene prices, petroleum minister Murli Deora today said that the increase was "not that high" and would not affect consumers much.

"What should we rollback? We have increased prices only by Rs3. If a family uses 5 litres of kerosene in a month, then its expenditure is increased only by 50 paise per day," he told reporters here.

Deora was asked if the government was planning to rollback the hike in petroleum prices in the wake of the strong opposition protest.

He asked the Opposition parties to not make the price rise a "prestige issue" as kerosene prices have been increased only by Rs 3 a litre and cooking gas by Rs 35 a cylinder, which are "not that high".

"We have increased cooking gas prices only by Rs 35 and this is nothing as a family uses a gas cylinder for one month, which means only Rs 1 increase in price per day," he added.

Deora said that one of the reasons behind increasing the price of kerosene was to check its theft and prevent its use as an adulterant for diesel. The huge price difference between diesel and kerosense was encouraging the practice, he said.

He said that the CPM had alleged that oil companies were making profits but the Indian Oil Corporation has said it was incurring losses.

He said oil PSUs need more money as they are expanding and setting up a number of new projects such as refineries across the country.

Asked if the prices of petroleum prices were expected to increase in the near future, the Minister said, "As far as petroleum prices are concerned, their prices will go down next week."