A meeting of group of ministers on fuel prices, headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, that was scheduled for Friday has been postponed.

"The meeting, earlier scheduled for December 14, has been postponed due to non-availability of some ministers," Petroleum Secretary M S Srinivasan said in New Delhi.

The ministerial group is to look into pricing of some essential commodities, including petrol, diesel, domestic cooking gas and PDS kerosene.

The GoM also includes Defence Minister A K Antony, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister T R Baalu and Consumer Affairs Minister Sharad Pawar.

Indian Oil [Get Quote], Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum are projected to lose Rs 69,753 crore (Rs 697.53 billion) on sale of petrol, diesel, LPG and PDS kerosene as the government has not allowed them to raise prices in line with the price of imported crude.

Petrol is being sold at a loss of Rs 8.74 a litre, diesel at Rs 9.92 per litre, kerosene Rs 20.53 a litre and LPG at a loss of Rs 256.35 per cylinder.

Government is understood to be mulling a marginal hike in petrol and diesel price along with an excise duty cut on auto fuels to cut the Rs 7,840 crore loss public sector oil firms are incurring every month on selling fuel below cost.

An increase of one rupee a litre in petrol price would cut under-recoveries by Rs 90 crore (Rs 900 million) a litre and the same on diesel would slash the loss by Rs 360 crore a month.