Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Oct 12: Anurag Thakur, the I&B Minister, announced on Wednesday that the government would provide three state-owned fuel dealers a one-time compensation of 22,000 crore to make up for the losses they incurred from selling household cooking gas LPG below cost over the previous two years.
The one-time grant to the three oil marketing companies, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), was approved by the Union Cabinet, which is chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at a meeting on Wednesday, Thakur said at a news briefing.
The grant will be used to pay for the losses they incurred from June 2020 to June 2022 when selling LPG below cost to consumers.
LPG prices are increasing across the world. One-time grant of Rs 22,000 crores has been given to Oil Marketing Companies of Public Sector Undertakings so that the burden of rising prices does not fall on common people: Union Minister Anurag Thakur pic.twitter.com/tIBpbcQxlL
— ANI (@ANI) October 12, 2022
The three companies offer clients domestic LPG at prices that are governed by the government. The price of LPG on the international market increased by over 300% between June 2020 and June 2022.
However, the cost rise was not entirely passed on to customers of domestic LPG, according to an official statement, in order to protect consumers from volatility in the price of LPG internationally.
Accordingly, domestic LPG prices have only increased by 72% over this time, it added, adding that this resulted in huge losses for the three companies.
