Projecting a moderation in inflation despite the hike in petrol and diesel prices, the Economic Survey on Thursday cautioned against the pressures from rising foreign funds and global commodity price movement.
Making a strong case for increasing prices of petrol and diesel, the government on Tuesday said cash loss of four major oil companies was alarming at a whopping Rs 1516 crore (Rs 15.16 billion) in a single month of July this year due to steep rise of
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The fall in global oil prices has trimmed the losses of state-owned oil companies, but it may not be enough to prevent a Rs 4 per litre increase in diesel prices and a Rs 20-25 per cylinder hike in LPG rates later this month.
The Union government will gain close to Rs 1.6 lakh crore in additional revenues this fiscal from a record hike in excise duty on petrol and diesel that has pushed the total incidence of taxation on auto fuels to 70 per cent of the price. Late on Tuesday evening, the government hiked excise duty on petrol by Rs 10 per litre and that on diesel by Rs 13 a litre to mop up gains arising from international oil prices falling to a two-decade low.
Although the government has started phasing out the subsidy on diesel sale, it continues to supply kerosene and LPG cylinders at subsidised rates.
Prices of both petrol and diesel rose for the first time in over 12 months as oil marketing companies raised rates to make up for rising cost of production. The rupee-dollar exchange rate also played spoilsport. Petrol price was on Monday hiked by 5 paise per litre and diesel by 10 paise a litre.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday ruled out a cut in excise duty on petrol and diesel to ease prices, which have touched an all-time high, saying payments in lieu of past subsidised fuel pose limitations. Petrol and diesel as well as cooking gas and kerosene were sold at subsidised rates during the previous Congress-led UPA government. Instead of paying for the subsidy to bring parity between the artificially suppressed retail selling price and the cost that had soared because of international rates crossing $100 per barrel, the then government issued oil bonds totalling Rs 1.34 lakh crore to the state-fuel retailers. These oil bonds and the interest thereon are being paid now.
Petroleum Minister Ram Naik on Monday said the hike in petrol and diesel prices was "justified" given the hardening of global crude prices.
Petrol and diesel prices may be hiked by up to Re 1 per litre each on August 15, the next due date for fuel price revision, in step with the surge in global oil prices.
The price of non-subsidised LPG, which customers buy after using up their quota of 12 subsidised cylinders, was raised by Rs 16.50 per 14.2-kg cylinder, the first hike in six months.
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In 12 hikes, petrol price has gone up by Rs 6.55 per litre and diesel by Rs 7.04 a litre.
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State-run Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum currently sell petrol, a commodity which the government freed from its control in June last year, at a discount of about Rs 4.50 a litre to its imported cost.
The three government oil marketing companies, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum, are losing Rs 320 crore a day as they sell at subsidised rates.
A hike in diesel and domestic LPG prices has been deferred for now, but an increase in petrol prices later this week looks imminent.
The fall in international oil prices had resulted in six consecutive reduction in petrol prices since August and two in diesel in the last one month and there was possibility of another round of cuts this weekend.
The government has cut the windfall profit tax on crude oil produced in the country while the levy on exports of diesel and ATF has been hiked, an official notification said. The tax, levied in the form of special additional excise duty or SAED, on domestically produced crude oil was reduced to Rs 6,700 per tonne from Rs 7,100 a tonne. SAED on the export of diesel was increased to Rs 6 per litre from Rs 5.50 a litre and on jet fuel or ATF to Rs 4 per litre from Rs 2, the notification said.
Petrol and diesel prices are unlikely to be hiked in the near future, with Finance Minister P Chidambaram agreeing in-principle to share a third of the revenue loss that state-run oil firms incur on sale of fuel
Close on the heels of a 70 paise per litre hike in petrol prices, the Oil Ministry is pushing for an increase in diesel and domestic cooking gas LPG prices, even though it is unsure of political support for the unpopular move with the ruling UPA alliance.
Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and A B Bardhan on Thursday shared dais with Bharatiya Janata Party's Nitin Gadkari and Murli Manohar Joshi at a demonstration against FDI in retail and hike in diesel prices.
Jet fuel prices on Thursday were hiked by the steepest ever 16 per cent to catapult rates to an all-time high in step with hardening international oil rates.
The increases, which follow similar hikes in mid-November, seek to take advantage of a slump in world oil prices to shore up government revenues without stoking inflation.
The Congress core group is meeting later in the evening where the implementation of Kirit Parikh Committee report on fuel pricing reforms may be discussed.
Much before the honeymoon ended with the public, the Manmohan Singh government delivered a shock in the form of the fuel price hike -- an act of confident UPA -- to compensate the losses of 2010 Union budget.
The over-recovery on diesel for such companies reached Rs 3.56 a litre for the first fortnight of October.
In the next quarter, the country will also start gearing up for various Assembly elections could put the government as well as the OMCs under pressure
He did not announce any rollback on diesel price hike.
Movement of prices in international oil market and rupee-USD exchange rate will be monitored
Jet fuel prices on Wednesday were cut by 1.3 per cent -- the first reduction after 10 rounds of price hikes -- on softening international crude oil rates. Simultaneously, prices of commercial LPG - used by business establishments such as hotels and restaurants - were reduced by Rs 135 per 19-kg cylinder. The price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) -- the fuel that helps aeroplanes fly -- has been reduced by Rs 1,563.97 per kilolitre, or 1.27 per cent, to Rs 1,21,475.74 per kl (Rs 121 per litre) in the national capital, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers.
While the share of diesel vehicles sales in the overall passenger car industry has already fallen sharply, sales of CNG vehicles have shown a compound annual growth rate of 15.5 per cent over the past five years.
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The government has slashed allocation of natural gas used for LPG production, and diverted the low-priced fuel to city gas retailers like Indraprastha Gas Ltd and Adani-Total Gas Ltd to meet a part of their requirement for CNG/piped cooking gas supplies, according an official order. The government had in October and November last year cut supplies of low-priced natural gas coming from old fields such as Mumbai High and Bassein fields in the Bay of Bengal, to city gas retailers by as much as 40 per cent in view of limited output.
As other members of the government have pointed out -- Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh and Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu among them -- India cannot afford to delay increasing prices, given the ballooning subsidy bill.
The government is likely to give a subsidy of Rs 30,000-35,000 crore to state-run oil companies - Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum (BPCL), and Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) - to compensate for losses incurred from selling LPG at below cost over the past 15 months, according to a senior official.
With crude oil touching a record $72 per barrel, Indian Oil Corporation is seeking a Rs 5.6 per litre increase in petrol and Rs 7.6 a litre hike in diesel prices to offset the Rs 80-crore (Rs 800-million) revenue loss per day.
Investors should be selective in their stock pickings in the oil sector as concerns over subsidies and crude prices loom large.
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