An immediate hike in prices of petroleum products, including petrol and diesel, was not under consideration of the UPA Government, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli Deora said here on Thursday.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An immediate hike in prices of petroleum products, including petrol and diesel, was not under consideration of the UPA Government, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli Deora said here on Thursday.
Though the international crude prices were going up, the UPA Government's approach was that the subsidy on petroleum products should continue as in the case of food and fertilisers, Deora told a press meet here.
The proposal to float oil bonds totalling Rs 25,000 crore to offset the deficit of the public sector oil companies due to increase in crude prices was expected to come up before the Union Cabinet shortly, he said.
"At present, we are not considering any increase. We are trying our best not to raise the prices of not only LPG and kerosene but also that of petrol and diesel," Deora said.
The minister was here to inaugurate the Refinery Technology meet organised by Centre for High Technology and Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Ltd.
Stressing the need to continue with the subsidy on the petroleum products, Deora said he had been in touch with Finance Minister P Chidambaram on the issue.
Since the oil companies were losing heavily, the government was planning to float oil bonds to make up for part of the losses, Deora said.
On chances of the Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline project getting affected by the India-US nuclear pact, Deora said "We cannot say that. I have no comment on that."
Secretary to the Ministry of Petroluem and Natural Gas, M S Sreenivasan, however, said official level talks on the project was still on.
On reports about the project, Sreenivasan said "we do not want to keep on responding to what appears in the press."
Asked about the purpose of the visit of the delegation led by Deora to Myanmar in the coming days, he said India would be bidding for some of the exploration blocks in that country.
Two blocks off the Kerala coast had been identified for exploration of natural gas. However, he said the places identified could not be disclosed at this state. These two blocks were in addition to three areas identified in Kerala-Konkan coast.
In normal course, off-shore exploration and development would take eight years, he said.
On the progress of research on developing bio-fuel, he said two plants--jatropha and pongamia-- had been shortlisted as the best potential source of bio-fuel.Researches and tests were on at different research institutions and universities on developing bio-fuel.
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