Union government de-regulated diesel and hiked natural gas rates

Union government on 19 October 2014 de-regulated the price of diesel and hiked the rates of domestically produced natural gas.

The price of diesel will be market-linked without any government intervention and retail rates reflecting price changes in the global market. Now the government will no longer provide subsidy on diesel.

This is the first reduction in diesel rates from 2009. The diesel price was reduced by 2 rupees a litre to 30.86 rupees in January 2009.After the deregulation of diesel, the rates of diesel will bring down rates by 3.37 rupees per litre.

Besides, the natural gas tariff was hiked by 46 percent and will go up from current 4.2 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) to 6.17 per mmBtu from 1 November 2014. The increase of natural gas price will push up fertiliser, power, CNG and PNG rates.

The natural gas price increase will result in CNG prices going up by 4.25 rupees per kg and piped cooking gas by 2.6 rupees. Besides, tariff for power produced from gas will go up by about 90 paisa per unit and fertilizer production cost by almost 2720 rupees per ton.