Commercial LPG price hiked by Rs 250

The price of commercial liquified petroleum gas has been hiked by Rs 250 effective from Friday, reported ANI. It will now cost Rs 2,253 per cylinder in Delhi.

This is the second hike in the price of commercial LPG this month. Its rate was earlier increased by Rs 105 on March 1.

While a commercial LPG weighs 19 kg, a domestic one weighs 14.2 kg.

The price of domestic LPG was, however, not raised on Friday. The domestic LPG rate was increased by Rs 50 on March 22 – the first revision since October 6. It costs Rs 949.50 in Delhi and Mumbai.

Since March 22, prices of petrol and diesel have been raised almost everyday. Fuel prices were hiked on Thursday for the ninth time in the last 10 days.

Since the revision in fuel prices began, petrol and diesel rates have increased by Rs 6.40 per litre. Fuel prices vary in states due to different value added tax and freight charges.

Opposition leaders have criticised the hike in fuel prices, with the Congress launching a protest on Thursday.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the party’s leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, and the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge took part in the protests held at Vijay Chowk in Delhi.

In a tweet, Rahul Gandhi also accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of “looting India” and compared the cost of fuel with neighbouring countries.

He accused the Modi government of stealing the money from the poor and handing it over to industrialists. “The government is making thousands of crores from this [fuel hike],” he said at the protest.

The Congress has also planned district-level protests against inflation between April 2 and April 4, and state-level demonstrations on April 7.

While fuel prices in India are regulated by oil marketing companies, it has often been observed that the rates remain unchanged during elections and are hiked after the result day.

For 18 days in March and April last year, the prices of petrol and diesel remained unchanged as four states and a Union Territory went to polls. However, after the results were announced on May 2, the prices rose steadily to hit record levels.

Ahead of the recent Assembly polls in five states, fuel rates had been on a freeze since November 4. This was also the period in which the cost of crude oil had surged by nearly $30 per barrel. Oil firms had not revised fuel prices for 137 days despite the substantial increase in global oil prices.

On March 24, Moody’s Investors Services said that the three state-owned fuel retailers – Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd – incurred losses of around $2.25 billion (Rs 19,000 crore) in revenue for keeping petrol and diesel prices on hold during Assembly polls.

Union ministers, however, had denied the charges that the hike in fuel prices were stalled due to Assembly elections and had attributed it to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.