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No immediate hike in petroleum prices: Naik

The government has no immediate plans to hike the prices of petroleum products to bridge the oil pool deficit, which stood at Rs 125 billion at the end of 2000-01 fiscal, Petroleum Minister Ram Naik said on Friday.

"We have no immediate proposal to hike prices. We are continuously monitoring the dynamic international crude oil prices and feel the present situation does not warrant any increase in domestic prices," Naik told reporters in New Delhi.

International crude oil prices have been between $24-$28 per barrel band during the last one month, he said.

If the current price trend continues for most part of the year, the oil pool deficit is estimated to rise to over Rs 190 billion by the end of current fiscal.

Naik said the oil import bill for 2001-02 is likely to be around Rs 850 billion, mostly unchanged from the previous year's figure.

He said the government was committed to total price decontrol of the petroleum sector by April 2002. While the administered pricing mechanism would be dismantled for controlled products, oil pool deficit would be transferred to the General Budget.

Pricing of aviation turbine fuel has already been deregulated from April this year.

From April, 2002, subsidy at the rate of only 33.3 per cent of the price of kerosene and 15 per cent of that of LPG for domestic use would be provided through the central government Budget, he said adding the price of diesel would be linked to import parity price.

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