NEW DELHI: The government appears to have resolved to lift its control on petrol pricing but may stagger the Rs 3.73 a litre rise in street prices that the move will entail. It also wants to raise diesel price by up to Rs 2 a litre but is being weighed down by concerns over stoking headline inflation which has already topped 10%. A marginal increase of Rs 25-50 in the price of cooking gas cylinders is also on the cards but the jury is still out on revising kerosene prices, even marginally.
This is the picture that is emerging on Wednesday, two days before the ministerial panel on fuels under FM Pranab Mukherjee meets for the second time on Friday. The panel looks set to clear at least the revisions in petrol and diesel prices even if Trinamool leader and railway minister Mamata Banerjee or NCP supremo and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar do not attend the meeting, which is a distinct possibility.
Oil minister Murli Deora declined to comment on the course the panel is going to chart or the common ground that has emerged among the UPA-2 partners. But he said: "There is no reason for the government to subsidize a car-owner to the tune of Rs 4-5 a litre of fuels they use. National oil companies are also losing so much on cooking gas but it is needed by every household. A litre of kerosene is cheaper than a bottle of water so there is huge diversion for adulteration."
Political sources said efforts were on to reach an understanding with Mamata, who had been opposing any fuel price revision. Mukherjee and Deora are now learnt to be pursuing her to agree to freeing up of petrol pricing, emphasizing that the whole burden was not going to be passed on in one go.
The Trinamool chief is unrelenting on cooking gas or kerosene till elections in her state, and is likely to stay off the panel's meeting just the way she had done in case of the Cabinet meeting in which sale of 10% government equity in Coal India Ltd was cleared. By staying away from the meeting, she once again, will ensure a plausible deniability of her role before the Bengal electorate.
The sources said both Pranab and Deora have also spoken to the DMK chief and Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi to bring him on board. The Centre's predicament vis-a-vis the mounting losses of state-run oilmarketing companies and the need to raise fuel prices have been communicated to the chief minister of Tamil Nadu also through DMK's Kanimozhi and telecom minister A Raja.
As far as Pawar is concerned, Mukherjee had raised the issue when he went to visit the NCP leader in a Mumbai hospital before a surgery. Though it is not known whether the two have discussed the matter again, the buzz is that Pawar has acquiesced to motor fuel price revision.
This is the picture that is emerging on Wednesday, two days before the ministerial panel on fuels under FM Pranab Mukherjee meets for the second time on Friday. The panel looks set to clear at least the revisions in petrol and diesel prices even if Trinamool leader and railway minister Mamata Banerjee or NCP supremo and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar do not attend the meeting, which is a distinct possibility.
Oil minister Murli Deora declined to comment on the course the panel is going to chart or the common ground that has emerged among the UPA-2 partners. But he said: "There is no reason for the government to subsidize a car-owner to the tune of Rs 4-5 a litre of fuels they use. National oil companies are also losing so much on cooking gas but it is needed by every household. A litre of kerosene is cheaper than a bottle of water so there is huge diversion for adulteration."
Political sources said efforts were on to reach an understanding with Mamata, who had been opposing any fuel price revision. Mukherjee and Deora are now learnt to be pursuing her to agree to freeing up of petrol pricing, emphasizing that the whole burden was not going to be passed on in one go.
The Trinamool chief is unrelenting on cooking gas or kerosene till elections in her state, and is likely to stay off the panel's meeting just the way she had done in case of the Cabinet meeting in which sale of 10% government equity in Coal India Ltd was cleared. By staying away from the meeting, she once again, will ensure a plausible deniability of her role before the Bengal electorate.
The sources said both Pranab and Deora have also spoken to the DMK chief and Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi to bring him on board. The Centre's predicament vis-a-vis the mounting losses of state-run oilmarketing companies and the need to raise fuel prices have been communicated to the chief minister of Tamil Nadu also through DMK's Kanimozhi and telecom minister A Raja.
As far as Pawar is concerned, Mukherjee had raised the issue when he went to visit the NCP leader in a Mumbai hospital before a surgery. Though it is not known whether the two have discussed the matter again, the buzz is that Pawar has acquiesced to motor fuel price revision.
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