By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR: Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have reported that as on 01.02.2021, 1.08 crore LPG consumers have given up their subsidy, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas and Steel Dharmendra Pradhan in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha said on Wednesday.
The prices of petroleum products including LPG in the country are linked to the prices of respective products in the international market. However, the Government continues to modulate the effective price to consumer for Subsidised Domestic LPG and the consumers get the products at subsidised rate. The subsidy on Subsidised Domestic LPG increase/decrease with the increase/decrease in the product price in international market and decision of Government on subsidy.
In order to provide clean cooking fuel to poor households, the Government had launched “Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana”(PMUY) scheme to provide 5 Crore deposit-free LPG connections, which were subsequently increased to 8 Crore. The target of Scheme has already been achieved in September, 2019. Implementation of PMUY has resulted increase in national LPG coverage to from 61.9 % as on 01.04.2016 to 99.5% as on 01.01.2021. As on 01.01.2021, total number of LPG consumers is 28.74 crore. State/UT details are at Annexure. Further, in budget announcement made on 1st February, 2021, the Finance Minister has announced to provide 1 crore more LPG connections under PMUY, Pradhan said.
Further, Oil Marketing Companies have commissioned 7208 LPG distributorships from 01.04.2016 to 01.01.2021 to meet the increased demand of LPG consumers. As on 01.01.2021, there are 199 LPG bottling plants running across the country. Generally, OMCs endeavour to make delivery of refill within 48 hours after the booking of the refills. The prices of petroleum products including LPG in the country are linked to the prices of respective products in the international market, the Minister said.
Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has published an ‘Ethanol Procurement Policy on a long term basis under Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme’ on 11th October 2019 which broadly covers the modalities for long term procurement of ethanol, proposed mechanism for long term procurement contracts, pricing methodology, etc.Currently the major sources of ethanol procurement are sugarcane juice, sugar, sugar syrup, B-heavy molasses, C-heavy molasses, Damaged food grains unfit for human consumption, surplus rice available with Food Corporation of India (FCI) and maize.
Indian basket of Crude Oil represents a derived basket comprising of Sour grade (Oman & Dubai average) and Sweet grade (Brent Dated) of Crude oil processed in Indian refineries
Prices of petrol and diesel have been made market-determined with effect from 26.06.2010 and 19.10.2014 respectively. Since then, the Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) take appropriate decision on pricing of petrol and diesel in line with international product prices and other market conditions. The OMCs have not only increased but also decreased the prices of petrol and diesel in line with changes in international prices and rupee dollar exchange rate.
Public Sector OMCs have implemented daily revision of retail selling price (RSP) of petrol and diesel in the entire country with effect from 16th June, 2017. Daily pricing has been introduced to bring more transparency and efficiency in pricing to benefit consumers. The details of retail selling prices of petrol/diesel are available at the website of Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) i.e. www.ppac.gov.in, he added.
