Andhra Pradesh

Chief Minister urges Centre to ease fuel hike

HYDERABAD: Expressing serious concern over the hike in prices of petroleum fuel and cooking gas, Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy appealed to the Centre on Wednesday to reduce the price as far as possible.

After reviewing the issue with officials, Dr. Reddy said the hike would hit the common man and he would take up the issue with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram during his visit to New Delhi shortly.

He said he was aware that the subsidy casts a heavy burden on the oil companies and the Centre, but the hike could have been much less at least in the case of cooking gas, a press release issued by the CMO stated. Already the inflation world-wide has caused rise in prices of some of the essential commodities and now with hike in petroleum prices, it would further hit the common man.

Dr. Reddy said, keeping in view the rise in prices of essential commodities, the government has introduced the Rs. 2- a-kg rice scheme for white cardholders and would launch supply of palm oil and red gram through fair price shops from July 1. It would also introduce the market intervention scheme to control prices of all essential commodities.

In contrast to the Chief Minister’s assertion, two Ministers expressed helplessness of the State government to do anything on the demand of the public to roll back prices. Civil Supplies Minister K. Venkata Krishna Reddy said increase or decrease of the prices of petroleum products was a subject dealt by the Union government and it was “no way connected with the State government”.

Major Irrigation Minister P. Lakshmaiah said the issue was not even in the hands of the Union government as the prices of petroleum products were being determined by demand and supply fluctuations at international level. He said: “Yes, the hike in prices of petrol, diesel and LPG will subject many families to hardship but the State government is helpless”.

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