Government to deregulate diesel prices

New Delhi, April 24 (IANS) The government has "in-principle" agreed to deregulate diesel prices, but there is no such proposal for cooking gas, Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said Tuesday.

"Government has, in principle, agreed to make the prices of diesel market-determined," Meena said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

"However, in order to insulate the common man from the impact of rise in international oil prices and the domestic inflationary conditions, the government continues to modulate the retail selling prices of diesel," he said.

Meena clarified that there was no proposal to make cooking gas prices market-linked. "There is no proposal at present to fully de-regulate cooking gas prices."

The minister informed the upper house of Parliament that the government had made a budgetary provision of Rs.43,580 crore for oil subsidies in 2012-13.

This includes Rs.40,000 crore for compensation to oil companies for under recoveries on account of sale of petroleum products and Rs.3580 crore for post-APM subsidies.

In 2011-12, the government borne an amount of Rs.65,000 crore oil subsidies, which included under recoveries of Rs.20,000 crore of fourth quarter of the previous year (2010-11), the minister said.