Union Cabinet meet on fuel price hike deferred

New Delhi, Feb 4 : The meeting of the Union Cabinet scheduled for today to take final decision on increasing petrol and diesel prices, in view of spurt in international oil prices, has been postponed.

"It will meet shortly," a government official said.

The meeting was indicated to be held this afternoon to consider raising petrol price by Rs 2 a litre and diesel by Re 1 a litre together with some cut in excise duty on the two fuel.

The Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh was scheduled to discuss recommendations of the Group of Ministers (GoM).

Last week, four of the seven-member GoM on fuel prices, headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee met and decided to leave the final decision to the Cabinet.

Union Petroleum Minister Murli Deora recently said that hiking fuel price in the country is not the only solution for losses being faced by the public sector oil companies.

Earlier, crude oil prices had touched an all-time high of 100 dollars a barrel thus triggering fears of more under-recoveries by oil Public Sector Undertakings (PSU).

ANI