Oil Minister Murli Deora on Friday indicated there would be no rollback in fuel price hike and hit out at Opposition for "misleading" people on the impact of the rise.
"What is there to roll back. The increase was necessitated because of huge under-recoveries that the government and oil companies are bearing," he said when asked whether government would withdraw the hike following criticism by Opposition and the call for a nationwide stir on July 5.
Deora accused Opposition of misleading people on the issue. "The BJP and left which never agreed on other issues had curiously ganged up against price hike," he said after a meeting with top officials of various oil companies and government officials.
he minister, here to launch Indian Oil's Chennai- Bengaluru petroleum products pipeline and Rajiv Gandhi Gramin LPG Vitarak Yojana, wanted the Opposition to explain to people the reason for the hike instead of going ahead with the strike plan.
"Give us a chance, see how the policy is implemented first," he said, claiming the hike would not adversely impact prices except for some marginal impact.
"The increase translates to less than Re 1 a day on domestic LPG and 26-27 paisa a day on kerosene which is not a very huge rise," he said. The government, he said, had borne a loss of over Rs one trillion for subsidising rates of diesel, LPG, Kerosene and petrol. Even after increasing the prices, the government would continue to bear losses.
Citing examples of neighbouring countries, he said the prices there were much higher in comparison to India, where kerosene prices were lowest in the world and LPG prices were among the lowest among countries importing the product.
