Petroleum prices will not decline: Deora

Jaipur, Sep 30: Petroleum prices will see no change with the declining trend in prices of crude oil in international market declared Petroleum Minister, Murli Deora on Tuesday, Sep 30. However, he urged the Rajasthan Government to explore scope for reducing tax and/or cess on petrol to bring down the prices at par to prevailing prices in neighbouring states.

Talking to reporters, Mr Deora said that a popular myth that prices had gone down was not very correct as the rise in the prices was much more than what had so far came down.

He said that oil companies and the Government were in deficit of around Rs 160 lakh crore for maintaining the petroleum products prices at the present level.

The Minister said that today he held a meeting with officials of various oil companies and the Rajasthan Government here.

He had again requested the state government officials to explore scope for providing relief in prices by slashing down tax.

He said that presently India's domestic production of crude oil was about 25 per cent of the total demand and the remaining 74 to 75 per cent around 121 MT was being imported.

''We are trying to increase oil production in the country but the growth in demand is much higher (around 8 to 10 per cent per annum) than new explorations of reserve,'' he said.

However, the country might attain self reliance in gas production by next 5 to 6 years, the Minister said.

OneIndia News