LPG price hiked by steep ₹50; ATF price cut by 4%
Cooking gas LPG price was hiked by ₹50 per cylinder — the first increase in rates in almost eight months — that came within days of the end of polling in three northeastern states and was sharply criticized by the Opposition. A 14.2-kg LPG cylinder in Delhi now costs ₹1,103, up from ₹1,053, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers.
State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) said ₹1,103 was the rate for a 14.2-kg non-subsidized LPG cylinder.
The government doesn’t pay any subsidy to most non-Ujjwala users, and this is the rate that they will have to pay for buying cooking gas refills. The government pays ₹200 per cylinder subsidy to the 9.58 crore poor who got free LPG connection under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. The effective price for them would be ₹903 per cylinder.
State-owned fuel retailers are supposed to revise rates on a monthly basis in line with cost, but they have not done so since 2020 and were in October last year given a one-time grant of ₹22,000 crores to make up for losses they incurred between June 2020 and June 2022.
They last revised domestic LPG prices on July 4, 2022.
With the latest increase, LPG now costs ₹1,102.50 per 14.2-kg cylinder in Mumbai, ₹1,129 in Kolkata, and ₹1,118.50 in Chennai. Rates differ from state to state, depending on local taxes.
Parallely, oil firms also hiked the price of commercial LPG, used in hotels and restaurants, by ₹350.5 to ₹2,119.5 per 19-kg cylinder.
Commercial LPG rates have more or less moved in tandem with cost, which soared in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year back. Rates of commercial LPG were last hiked by ₹25 per cylinder in January.
The opposition criticized the government for raising the fuel rates, particularly of domestic LPG, ahead of Holi. In a tweet, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the common man is suffering from backbreaking inflation under the Modi government. Priyanka Chaturvedi of Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray said this was the Modi government’s Holi gift.
Separately, the ATF price was cut by 4% in line with softening international rates of fuel. Accordingly, jet fuel rates were reduced by ₹4,606.50 per kilolitre to ₹1,07,750.27 per kg in Delhi. This reverses the hike in rates affected by an equal measure last month.
ATF price is revised on the 1st of every month based on the average rate of international benchmark and foreign exchange rates.
Petrol and diesel prices, however, remained on freeze for a record 11th month in a row. Petrol costs ₹96.72 per liter in the national capital, and diesel comes for ₹89.62.
State-owned fuel retailers are supposed to revise petrol and diesel prices daily based on a 15-day rolling average of benchmark international fuel prices, but they haven’t done that since April 6, 2022.
Prices were last changed on May 22 when the government cut excise duty to give relief to consumers from a spike in retail rates that followed a surge in international oil prices.
