Immediate hike in prices of petroleum products ruled out

KOCHI: Union Petroleum minister Murli Deora on Sunday ruled out any immediate hike in prices of petroleum products, including LPG and kerosene.

"As far as possible we will not increase prices of these products", Deora told in a press meet here.

Last year, the government and the oil companies had together shared 87 per cent of the burden of under recoveries caused by the high oil prices, he said.

The price of PDS kerosene had not been hiked in the last three years keeping in the interest of the poor and vulnerable sections of the society, he said adding it had been kept at about Rs 9 per litre.

This has been done by providing a huge subsidy by the government and the oil companies to the tune of Rs 50,000 crore though the global oil prices touched record highs, he said.

The Centre was providing subsidy of Rs 16 per litre by providing PDS kerosene at about Rs 9 per litre.

The minister said he would urge the Finance minister, P Chidambaram to further bring down the excise and customs duties of the petroleum products.

The two duties have been considerably reduced, but that was not enough, he said. "We are doing our best to see that prices do not increase", he said.

Murli Deora said incidence of diversion of PDS kerosene in Kerala has come to his ministry's notice.

The government was working on introducing a system by which such diversions would stop, he said.

To prevent domestic LPG cylinders being used for commercial purposes, the government was contemplating introduction of 'smart card' for LPG users, he said.

The card would be introduced to keep track of the domestic cylinders.

Joint secretary, Petroleum and Natural gas, Narasimha Raju, BPCL Chairman and Managing Director, A Sinha, M S Srinivasan, Secretary, Petroleum and Natural gas were among those present.