LS Question: Why petrol, diesel prices not cut; Govt says “look at Pakistan, US”
By Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi, March 23: Lok Sabha MPs Dinesh Chandra Yadav and Santosh Kumar specifically sought to know from the government why relief to consumers not provided despite crude oil prices being stable for nine months in their starred question. The government in a written reply reeled out statistics of steep rise in the retail prices of petrol, diesel, and gas in the US, Pakistan and other countries.
The government has last cut excise duty on petrol and diesel on April 6, 2022. The crude oil prices have crashed by over 26 per cent in the last one year. Brent crude oil price is also down by 12 per cent in the last six months. Last revision of the retail prices of petrol, diesel was done when the Brent crude oil was $127 per barrel.
“Due to high volatility and elevated prices of crude oil, most of the developed countries have been reeling under high petrol and diesel prices. As per data compiled by PPAC, in developed countries like US, the prices of petrol and diesel increased by about 10.8 per cent and 35.2 per cent respectively over the period January 2022 to January 2023, whereas during this period, prices in India (Delhi) increased only by 1.37 per cent and 3.40 per cent respectively,” the government said in a written reply.
Next, the government came the comparison of the neighbouring countries. “During the same period significant increase in the prices of petrol and diesel has been seen in our neighbouring countries such as Pakistan (28 per cent in petrol and 40 per cent in diesel), Bangladesh (32 per cent in petrol and 24 per cent in diesel), Sri Lanka (29 per cent in petrol and 106 per cent in diesel) and in Nepal (31 per cent in petrol and 48 per cent in diesel),” stated the government.
However, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have been reeling under severe economic crisis. While Sri Lanka defaulted on servicing of foreign debt obligations, Pakistan is on the verge of an economic collapse. Bangladesh is also reeling under economic crisis as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, which dried remittances, which had also been the case with Sri Lanka and Nepal.
“India imports more than 60 per cent of its domestic LPG consumption. Government continues to modulate the effective price of domestic LPG. While the Saudi Contract Prices (CP), on which domestic LPG prices are based, rose by 235 per cent from 236 $/MT in April 2020 to 790 $/MT in February 2023, retail selling price of domestic LPG has increased only by 89.7 per cent from Rs. 581.5 in May 2020 to Rs.1103 in March 2023 and effective cost for PMUY rose only by 55.2 per cent during the same period,” added the government in its reply.
The Ministry of Petroleum also stated that the Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies have suffered huge losses on sale of domestic LPG. “To compensate these losses, the Government has recently paid a one-time compensation of Rs. 22000 crore to OMCs,” added the Ministry.
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