Price hike: LPG, Kerosene may be spared

Currently options are being weighed on at least keeping cooking gas and kerosene out of a fuel price hike.

With the Prime Minister expressing difficulties in subsidising energy for long at current levels, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said on Tuesday that options are being weighed on at least keeping cooking gas and kerosene out of a fuel price hike.

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"We are trying to see that in some areas like kerosene and LPG, we don't increase prices," he told reporters here.

Deora said he would be meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday to discuss the revision of petroleum prices. On Monday, Singh had said the government had moderated the inflation impact of high global crude prices, but said it cannot continue to subsidise energy consumption on this scale.

According to estimates, oil marketing companies will be suffering under-recoveries of Rs 73,512 crore during 2006-07 for selling petroleum products at discounted rates.

The prices of petrol and diesel were last revised in September 2005.

Earlier this month, the Petroleum Minister had met the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister and the Left parties to apprise them of the situation.

Oil companies have demanded that prices of petrol be raised by Rs 9.33 a litre, that of diesel by Rs 10.43 a litre, kerosene by Rs 17.16 per litre and LPG by Rs 114.45 a cylinder.