The government said today that prices of diesel, LPG, kerosene, petrol and
aviation turbine fuel will be increased but a decision on the timing will be
taken in due course.
Ruling out a hike in prices on Saturday, Petroleum Minister Ram
Naik told reporters after the meeting of the Union Cabinet,
headed by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, “There will
not be any announcement today. It will be made in due course
of time.”
“I have briefed the cabinet about the prevailing scenario
in the wake of shooting international prices. We have no
option but to increase prices of all the five products under
the administered price mechanism,” he added.
Expressing concern over the global crude prices which shot up from $11
a barrel last year to over $36 dollars now, Naik said that oil pool deficit had become unmanageable.
“We will go for a mix of increase in prices, cut in
duties and oil bonds to reduce the deficit,” he said.
Asserting that he need not go to the cabinet on the issue
and that the final decision would be taken by him, Naik said
that he was invited for the meeting of the National Democratic
Alliance (NDA) partners where he would give the coalition
partners a presentation on the difficult oil scenario in the
country.
Appealing to the state governments to lower sales tax on
petro products by five per cent for giving immediate relief to
consumers, Naik said that any further delay in price hike was
not possible now.
“We last revised the prices of kerosene and LPG in March
and refrained from passing the burden of shooting
international prices to consumers. We have reached the
limit,” he said while emphasising that increase in prices
would be kept to a limit where consumers could bear the
burden.
Bureau Report
