No order to defer hike: Pradhan After holding oil prices on Wednesday, oil firms cut rates

New Delhi, April 12: Oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday said the government has not asked state-owned oil firms to defer raising the retail price of petrol and diesel ahead of elections in Karnataka.

Incidentally, oil firms after keeping rates unchanged for a day, on Thursday cut petrol price by 4 paisa per litre and by 3 paisa in case of diesel despite firming international oil rates.

The prices at petrol pumps of state-owned fuel retailers like Indian Oil (IOC) were cut by 1-3 paisa every day in the first fortnight of December last year and rates started moving up immediately after polling for assembly elections in Gujarat concluded on December 14, leading to speculation that government may have asked oil companies to hold on to the prices.

“There is no such direction (to hold price hike),” Mr Pradhan told reporters here.

He said the government has freed fuel pricing in a bid to bring competition and there is no going back on it. “It is well planned strategy of the government that oil companies are fixing the fuel prices on the basis of international oil prices. If we don’t bring competitor in the long term, then there would be no solution. The government has given freedom to oil companies,” he said.

Mr Pradhan said oil companies heads had on Wednesday stated that they have not got any direction from the government. “There are no directions from government to them,” he said.

The government reportedly had informally directed state-run fuel retailers not to raise petrol and diesel prices in the run-up to the December 2017 assembly elections in Gujarat. By some accounts, as much as 45 paisa increase warranted in petrol and diesel rates was not passed on.

This time around IOC, Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) have reportedly been asked to absorb up to `1 a litre hike. “No, we haven’t heard from the government anything (on dropping daily price revision),” IOC chairman Sanjiv Singh had stated on Wednesday.

HPCL CMD M.K. Surana too said the company is not aware of any directive to oil companies not to pass on the rise in international oil prices.

The government had in June 2010 freed petrol price from its control and the diesel rates were deregulated in October 2014. Prices have since then moved more or less in tandem with international rates barring a few exceptions like the period before a election. — PTI