Dairies, milk plants, grocery shops, chemists and petrol pumps, ATMs, e-commerce services of essential items like food and medicines will remain open, he said.
International air travel of passengers has been permitted in a limited manner under the Vande Bharat mission. Further opening-up will take place in a calibrated manner.
The ministry of petroleum and natural gas has granted seven authorisations to companies for selling automobile (auto) fuels in the country. These new approvals are under the relaxed guidelines for authorisation to market transportation fuels that were revised in 2019. This is expected to make the competition more intense in India's petroleum retail business. According to a top oil ministry official, a fresh marketing authorisation has been granted to Reliance Industries (RIL) under these norms. This is being done since RIL's existing retail marketing authorisation has been transferred to its subsidiary Reliance BP Mobility
Government-controlled oil-marketing companies (OMCs) have held back petrol and diesel price revisions for a week and are expected to continue doing so, ostensibly owing to political reasons. It appears that the Centre has informally conveyed to the three major OMCs to not revise fuel prices for the time being, two people in the government said. This informal directive follows the talks between the Centre and states on cutting taxes and bringing the auto fuels under the good service tax regime not fetching the desired results, so far.
Since August, petrol price has been cumulatively cut by Rs 9.36 per litre.
The government has chosen to profiteer off people's misery and suffering, Gandhi said.
A look at the key decisions taken by the Narendra Modi government in its six months.
It will soon be two years since petrol was decontrolled, but few will happily celebrate this second birthday.
Narendra Modi's landslide victory gives him the mandate to deregulate diesel prices as well as raise natural gas rates with a clear road map towards free pricing to cut subsidies and shrink the budget deficit.
The government's plans to reign in petroleum subsidies to plug the fiscal deficit next financial year are in jeopardy, as a whopping Rs 2.13 lakh-crore revenue loss is expected at the current levels of global crude oil prices and domestic retail prices of controlled products.
Losses on sale of diesel at government-controlled rates have hit a record Rs 19.26 a litre, sending state-owned oil companies scrambling for ways to cover the mounting losses.
Oil PSUs, which at the beginning of the fiscal were losing Rs 670 crore (Rs 6.7 billion) per day on selling diesel, domestic cooking gas LPG and kerosene at government controlled rates, are now losing Rs 372 crore (Rs 3.72 billion) a day, industry sources said.
Still battling the fallout of last month's steep Rs 7.54 a litre hike in petrol price, the government on Friday said it is not considering raising rates of diesel, domestic gas (LPG) and kerosene for the moment.
It hopes to enter the business in 9-15 months. "We have plans to enter diesel generator, petrol, LPG and kerosene segment, but it will be too early to comment on any specific deal," said Kalyan Bhattacharya, president and CEO, Birla Power Solutions. "The size of the acquisition will depend on the horse power of the engines manufactured by the company. BPSL is looking at a company manufacturing diesel engines of capacities ranging between 25 horse power and 200 horse power."
The government has received three preliminary bids for buying of controlling stake in India's second-largest fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Wednesday. Mining-to-oil conglomerate Vedanta had on November 18 confirmed putting in an expression of interest (EoI) for buying the government's 52.98 per cent stake in BPCL. The other two bidders are said to be global funds, one of them being Apollo Global Management.
The government has taken a number of steps to stem the depreciation of rupee including moderation in demand of non-essential imports and enhancing supply of capital flows, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said.
Unless the per barrel prices comes down to $67 level, the reduction in existing fuel prices, including petrol, diesel and LPG, should not be expected, Deora said while replying a volley of questions on whether the government would take a populist measure or reducing oil prices despite losses to oil marketing companies. Meanwhile, global crude oil prices today fell $10.52 at $96.37 per barrel in New York's main contract for November delivery.
Oil companies have welcomed the hike in petrol and diesel as it will help them cut losses on sale of fuel.
ONGC is likely to pay Rs 17,000 cr to subsidise products by the end of this fiscal.
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
Reliance Industries Ltd, India's largest private sector refiner, will restart operations at its Jamnagar refinery LPG-making unit next week, company Nikhil Meswani, executive director said on Monday.
Low oil prices drove the growth in states' share faster than expected, says Abhishek Waghmare.
The government on Monday decided to hike petrol price by Rs 4 a litre and diesel by Rs 2 per litre
Dhubri is the worst hit with over 8.72 lakh people affected, followed by Barpeta with more than 4.78 lakh people and Goalpara with around 4.28 lakh population.
What are the implications of the new players coming into the retail segment on existing companies like BPCL, HPCL and IOC? \n\n\n\n
In a bid to boost its revenue in the LPG segment, public sector Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd will soon launch more value-added products such as domestic water heaters and mini generators powered by gas.
'I have no problems with the finance ministry or with state governments treating petrol pump prices as the last resort for meeting their ambitious spending targets with very limited revenue resources.' 'But let's do away with this smokescreen of free pricing of petrol and diesel and go back to administered pricing regime,' says Dr Sudhir Bisht.
The Vedanta group on Wednesday confirmed putting in a preliminary expression of interest (EoI) for buying the government's stake in Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL).
The latest round of petrol and diesel price increase, on Thursday, met with opposition from many corners.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to deliver his third Independence Day speech on August 15, he is inviting ideas from citizens on issues he should speak on
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
A new formula for pricing natural gas in the domestic market was determined; the decontrol of diesel prices was announced; and the scheme that directly transferred subsidies to bank accounts of users of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders was modified and relaunched.
Like Indira Gandhi, even Narendra Modi seems to be relying on directing public-sector banks through ministry of finance supported by party cadres, says Debashis Basu.
Modi govt is committed to extend the piped gas networks in the country to 30,000 kms in the next 15 years as against the 15,000 kms network today
India's water future remains very bleak. The monsoon season, which once extended to 4 months, is now down to less than 30 days of heavy rain.
According to estimates, if the companies are not allowed to raise petrol rates at least Rs 5 a litre by the first fortnight of September, they might begin to suffer underrecoveries on this decontrolled auto fuel, too -- for the first time this financial year.
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