Cooking Gas Cylinders Costlier by Rs 50, Excise Duty on Petrol, Diesel Up but Not for Consumers
NEW DELHI, Apr 7: The price of cooking gas (domestic LPG cylinder) has been hiked by Rs 50 per cylinder, Union Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Monday. The price has been increased for both subsidised and general category customers.
Cooking gas for Ujjawala users – poor beneficiaries who get LPG connection free of cost – will cost Rs 553 per 14.2-kg cylinder from the current Rs 503 in the national capital. The same for general users will now cost Rs 853. The rates, which vary from state to state depending on local incidence of taxes, were last revised in March last year when they were cut by Rs 100.
Last week, the prices of commercial LPG gas cylinders were reduced by Rs 41. The price revision impacted restaurants, hotels and other commercial establishments that use these cylinders for daily operations.
The government has also raised the excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs two per litre but the hike would not be passed on to consumers and would be borne by oil marketing companies. The excise duty on petrol was hiked to Rs 13 per litre and that on diesel to Rs 10 a litre, an official order showed. The increase in duties will “come into force on the 8th day of April 2025,” it said.
While any change in taxes is normally passed on to consumers, there will be no change in the retail selling price of petrol and diesel as the excise hike will be set off against the reduction in retail prices that was warranted from the fall in international oil prices.
Mr Puri said, “This is a step which we will review as we go along. We review these every 2-3 weeks. Therefore, the excise duty that you have seen increase is not to go on to the consumer on petrol and diesel…”
“The international price of crude oil came down to around $60 a barrel, but please remember that our oil marketing companies carry inventories over 45 days. If you go back to January, the crude price then was $83, which came down subsequently to $75. So the crude inventory that they’re carrying is at $75 on average per barrel,” he said.
“You can legitimately expect prices of petrol and diesel to be moderated by the oil marketing companies in keeping with the global price. In a deregulated sector, you can expect them to adjust the market retail price,” he added.
(Manas Dasgupta)
