Cooking gas price was hiked Rs 50 per cylinder on Wednesday— the first increase in rates in almost eight months — that came within days of the close of polling in three northeastern states.

The move was sharply criticised by the Opposition. A 14.2-kg LPG cylinder in Delhi now costs Rs 1,103, up from Rs 1,053, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers.

State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) said Rs 1,103 was the rate for a 14.2-kg non-subsidised LPG cylinder.

The government doesn’t pay any subsidy to most non-Ujjwala users and this is the rate that they will have to pay for buying cooking gas refills. The government pays Rs 200 per cylinder subsidy to the 9.58 crore poor who got free LPG connection under the Pradhan Mantri UjjwalaYojana. The effective price for them would be Rs 903 per cylinder.

State-owned fuel retailers are supposed to revise rates on a monthly basis in line with cost but they have not done so since 2020 and were in October last year given a one-time grant of Rs 22,000 crore to make up for losses they incurred between June 2020 and June 2022.

They last revised domestic LPG price on July 4, 2022. With the latest increase, LPG now costs Rs 1,102.50 per 14.2-kg cylinder in Mumbai, Rs 1,129 in Calcutta and Rs 1,118.50 in Chennai. Rates differ from state to state depending on local taxes.

Oil firms also hiked the price of commercial LPG, used in hotels and restaurants, by Rs 350.5 to Rs 2,119.5 per 19-kg cylinder. Commercial LPG rates have more or less moved in tandem with costs which soared in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year back. Rates of commercial LPG were last hiked by Rs25 per cylinder in January.

PTI