After break, fuel prices may begin rising once again
State-run fuel retailers have kept automobile fuel rates frozen for almost a month in a departure from the policy of aligning petrol and diesel rates daily by tactically using minor gains of falling international oil prices to offset the need for raising pump rates, three people aware of the development said.
The strategy was to stop the surging streak of fuel prices to avoid the attention of the Opposition when Parliament was in session, a government official and two company executives said, asking not to be named. As the session is now over, the oil marketing companies may gradually resume the policy of daily price revision, they added.
The monsoon session of Parliament started on July 19 and ended two days ahead of schedule on August 11. The companies, however, stopped the daily aligning of pump prices of petrol and diesel days ahead of the session. First, the retail price of diesel was frozen on July 15 at ₹89.87 per litre in Delhi and petrol followed suit after two days, at ₹101.84 a litre.
Meanwhile, international oil prices saw wide fluctuations in the last one month. Benchmark Brent crude, which was at $73.47 per barrel on July 15, first fell to $68.62 on July 19 only to jump by over 10.8% at $76.05 on July 29. Oil prices slumped again in the international market and Brent fell to $69.04 a barrel, a drop of over 9.2% from July 29. It, however, bounced back to above $70 mark last week and closed the last trading session on Friday at $70.59 a
Financ minister Nirmala Sithar aman on Monday allaye the fear that inflatio could hamper India’ economic growth as th government is constantl monitoring prices o essential commodities t keep it under check.
Sitharaman said min istries have been told t front-load the ₹5.54 lak crore capital expenditur budgeted in the curren financial year to boos growth.
She expressed inabil ity to reduce central lev ies on petrol and diese to quell auto fuel rate because the Modi gov ernment is forced shel out huge sum to repa principal and interest on oil bonds issued b the previous Congress led United Progressiv Alliance (UPA) govern ment.
ment reiterated that they fo the daily pricing policy.
In a written reply to the R Sabha on August 4, minist state for petroleum Rames Teli said: “Effective June 2017, daily pricing of petrol diesel has been implemente the entire country... to b more transparency and ciency in pricing to benefit sumers.”
Email queries on this ma sent to the three state-run re ers – Indian Oil Corpora