Cooking Gas price up Rs 50; Excise Duty hiked on petrol, diesel

New Delhi, Apr 7 : The domestic cooking gas LPG price on Monday was hiked by a steep Rs 50 per cylinder across India and CNG by Re 1 per kg, while the government raised taxes on petrol and diesel to shore up its revenues.

The increase in cooking gas price will be for the Ujjawala – poor beneficiaries who got LPG connection free of cost – and general users, and will be effective from April 8 and has been necessitated due to the rise in input cost, Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said.

Cooking gas for Ujjawala users will cost Rs 553 per 14.2-kg cylinder from the current Rs 503 in the national capital. The same for general users will now cost Rs 853.

The rates, which vary from state to state depending on local incidence of taxes, were last revised in March last year when they were cut by Rs 100.

Also, CNG prices were hiked by Re 1 per kg in the national capital and adjoining cities after the government last week raised input natural gas prices by almost 4 per cent.

CNG in the national capital will cost Rs 75.09 per kg, Indraprastha Gas Ltd – the city gas retailer – said in a post on X.

This follows the price of input natural gas being hiked from USD 6.50 per million British thermal units to USD 6.75 from April 1.

Alongside, the government hiked excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 2 per litre each to raise about Rs 32,000 crore additional tax revenue. However, there will be no change in retail prices as the increase will be adjusted against the price cut that was warranted because of falling international oil prices.

Puri said prices of crude oil – which is turned into petrol and diesel in refineries – have fallen to about USD 60 per barrel from USD 70-75, and a reduction in the retail selling price of petrol and diesel is possible if the international oil prices stay at those levels.

The special additional excise duty (SAED) on petrol has been increased from Rs 11 per litre to Rs 13, and that on diesel from Rs 8 to Rs 10 a litre. With this, the total incidence of taxes imposed by the central government on petrol has increased to Rs 21.9 a litre (Rs 1.40 a litre basis excise duty, Rs 13 SAED, Rs 2.50 agriculture cess and Rs 5 road and infrastructure cess) from Rs 19.9 a litre.

On diesel, the total incidence has gone up from Rs 15.80 per litre to Rs 17.80 (Rs 1.80 per litre basic excise duty, Rs 10 special additional excise duty, Rs 4 agriculture cess and Rs 2 road and infra cess).

Puri defended the move, saying oil companies had been incurring losses on LPG sales and the increase in retail price and revenue from excise hike will be used to make up for that.