March 27, New Delhi - Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Hardeep Singh Puri, stated that international crude prices have surged sharply in the past month, leading to a global rise in petrol and diesel prices.
The Minister noted that while fuel prices have increased significantly across regions, the government chose to absorb the financial burden to protect Indian consumers.
He added that the Centre has incurred losses and imposed export taxes to offset losses of oil companies and manage the impact of soaring global prices.
Hardeep Singh Puri expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for their timely, bold, and visionary decision.
In a post on X, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri wrote, "International crude prices have risen sharply in the last 1 month, from around $70/barrel to around $122/barrel. As a result, petrol and diesel prices for consumers have increased worldwide. Prices have increased by around 30%-50% in Southeast Asian countries, 30% in North American countries, 20% in Europe, and 50% in African countries.
The Modi Government had two choices – either drastically increase prices for citizens of Bharat, as all other nations have done, or bear the financial burden so that the Indian citizen is protected from international volatility.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in keeping with his Government's commitment of the last 4 years since the conflict in Russia-Ukraine started, decided to incur losses again to safeguard the Indian citizen.
The Government has incurred significant losses in its tax revenues to ensure that the very high losses of oil companies (approximately ₹24/litre for petrol and ₹30/litre for diesel) at this time of sky-high international prices are reduced. At the same time, export tax has been levied as international prices of petrol and diesel have skyrocketed, and any refinery exporting to foreign nations will have to pay export tax."
(File Photo)