New Delhi: With rising losses of public sector oil firms due to selling fuel on discounted prices, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said on Tuesday that he would meet Finance Minister P Chidambaram next week to discuss oil pricing and the package to bail out the loss making firms.
"There was no conclusion in the last meeting. We will meet Finance Minister Chidambaram next week or so to discuss the issue," Deora told reporters.
In the last meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Chidambaram and the Chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council C Rangarajan on March 13 this year, Deora had emphasised for restructuring the entire system of petroleum subsidies to make them more transparent.
On the line of food and fertilizer subsidies, Deora had sought a transparent mechanism for disbursing subsidies on LPG and kerosene to bridge the difference between the cost and selling price of fuel.
To bail out the public sector oil companies which are currently facing bankruptcy owing to losses on sale of fuels at the existing prices, he has suggested ten-fold hike in subsidy on LPG and kerosene.
He suggested that the Rs 60,000 crore collected as cess on domestic crude oil should be used to bridge the subsidy gap.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked Deora and Chidambaram to prepare a roadmap for implementation of the Rangarajan Committee recommendations.
The Committee has suggested Rs.75 per cylinder hike on domestic LPG price, Rs 1.21 per litre on petrol and Rs 1.96 per litre hike on diesel prices.
The committee has also proposed duty changes and suggested restricting sale of subsidised kerosene to below poverty line (BPL) families only.
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