Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli Deora has ruled out any move to hike prices of petrol, diesel, LPG or kerosene despite the steady rise in prices of crude oil.

He was speaking to newsmen after opening the 14th ‘Refinery Technology Meet’ organised by the Centre for High Technology under the ministry and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd at Kovalam here.
“Our approach is that subsidy on petroleum products should continue as in the case of food and fertilisers,’’ Mr Deora said.

The minister said that the Union cabinet would take up the proposal to float oil bonds of Rs 25,000 crore in a bid to offset the deficit of oil companies. With the rise in fuel prices, the government has ensured that additional cost was not passed on to the consumers. The government bears almost 85 per cent of the increased cost burden.

Measures
“The Government has adopted various short term and long term measures to ensure energy security like demand restraint through efficient conservation practices, increasing production and use of bio-fuels, increased fuel substitution through utilisation of natural gas, increasing emergency stocks for strategic reserve and energy efficiency improvement,” he said.


The theme of the three-day meet being attended by technical and managerial experts of the oil sector is ‘Energy and Environment Challenges for the Hydrocarbon Sector’.