Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Saturday countered opposition Congress' statement of providing cooking gas at Rs 399-414 per cylinder as against Rs 803 rate for general customers and Rs 503 for Ujjwala beneficiaries under the BJP, saying pricing under the UPA government was neither here nor there as there was scarce availability and the subsidy went to the undeserving.
A day after the government cut cooking gas LPG price by Rs 100 per 14.2-kg cylinder, Puri addressed a press conference to detail how the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government more than doubled the LPG coverage to 32.5 crore households, including providing 10.3 crore poor women free connections under the Ujjwala scheme.
Puri also said that the government moderated rates when prices of international oil, on which the country is 85 per cent dependent to meet its needs, shot up between 2020 and 2023.
As a result prices came down to Rs 803 per 14.2-kg cylinder in the national capital. For Ujjwala, the rate comes to Rs 503 after considering a Rs 300 per cylinder government subsidy.
"There is a new assistant professor of gas pricing university, who is talking about the subsidy given in their times. One wants to ask him, though it is no use and I would rather put it across to you the facts that in 60 years since LPG cylinders were available, the total cylinders in the country was 14 crore," he said.
Though Puri talked of cylinder availability, he meant number of cooking gas connections.
"LPG cylinder (during Congress rule) was a scarce commodity and you had to run around to get one and you needed recommendation. There was no availability... If cylinders were not available, I would say pricing is neither here nor there. And this Rs 60,000 crore subsidy (given on LPG during Congress rule) was given to whom?" he asked.
Citing 1.13 crore cooking gas users voluntarily giving up subsidy on Prime Modi's call in 2014-15, he said there was "rampant pilferage".
"Rs 60,000 crore went to whom," he asked. "There was no gas in your times yet you gave Rs 60,000 crore subsidy. It should be investigated it went to whom."
Puri went on to question the fuel pricing during UPA regime, saying to keep petrol and diesel prices under check, the then government floated oil bonds which the present government is now repaying with interest.
"This is what I call irresponsible policy making -- passing on your problem to future generations," he said.
Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala in a post on X had called the price cut an "election gimmick". He detailed his calculation of what the price of LPG should be based on prevailing international price and went on to state that the Congress-led UPA had given Rs 1.47 lakh crore subsidy on petrol, diesel and LPG during 2013-14 that helped make available cooking gas at Rs 399-414 per 14.2-kg cylinder.
In comparison, the Modi government provided Rs 11,925 crore subsidy under Ujjwala scheme, he claimed. Non-Ujjwala beneficiaries pay market price for LPG.
Puri said during previous regimes, LPG was a scarce commodity and there was a long wait for a connection. "It was mainly available in urban areas and hardly accessible to rural India. Subsidies were often pilfered by middlemen."
"Today at Rs 503 for 14.2-kg, poor in India are getting this imported essential fuel for one of the lowest prices, lower than prices in most producing nations as well," he said.
The minister said between June 2020 and June 2022, international prices of LPG shot up by around 303 per cent. Not all of this was passed on to consumers. "Domestic LPG prices increased by only 72 per cent, prices could have reached Rs 2,500 when they went up to Rs 1,100 (in August 2022)."
"Modi government ensured prices only went up marginally, leading to under recovery of Rs 28,000 crore for oil marketing companies (OMCs)," he said, adding, of this, the government provided Rs 22,000 crore subsidy.
On petrol and diesel, he said the government had foregone Rs 2.2 lakh crore in revenue when it cut excise duty on the two fuel between November 2021 and May 2022 in order to insulate consumers from rising international oil prices.
The government had during pandemic years raised excise duty on petrol by Rs 13 per litre and by Rs 16 a litre on diesel to avoid passing on a sharp dip in global oil prices. These were rolled back in two excise duty cuts in November 2021 and May 2022.
He said petrol and diesel cost less in BJP ruled states as they had also reduced local sales tax or VAT when excise duty was cut.