After petrol & diesel, consumers face cooking gas price hike

NEW DELHI: Government seems to be in no mood to subsidise the price of common mans cooking gas which like the price of auto fuels petrol and diesel has maintained consistent increase for past few months.

The price of domestic 14.2kg LPG cylinder was increased by Rs 25 on Thursday, the third increase in the month of February itself, taking its price Rs 794 a cylinder in Delhi.

While the practice of weekly or fortnightly price revision of cooking gas is normally done for non-subsidised cylinders, this year oil companies shave maintained almost equal increase in price of subsidised LPG cylinders as well.

This has equated its price with market prices cooking gas and thus helping the government to completely eliminate direct benefit transfer (DBT) benefits extended to cooking gas consumers.

"There may just be some element of subsidy that still may be involved in cooking gas if it is getting transported to far off distances from bottling plants. Otherwise, subsidised and nonsubsidised cooking gas prices have almost remained same during entire FY21," said an official.

While consumers focus has remained on petrol and field prices, the cooking gas price has gone almost unnoticed. It had risen over Rs 100 a cylinder in the month of February itself.