Kerala Congress (M) asks Centre to fix prices of petroleum products

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala Congress (M), a key partner in the Congress-led UDF government in the state, has asked the Centre to roll back its decision to deregulate prices of petroleum products in view of difficulties faced by common man due to frequent price hikes.

The party, led by state Finance Minister K M Mani, said the government should intervene in reducing the price of petroleum products in proportion with the reduction of crude oil price in the international market.

In a recent letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, KC-M General Secretary and former MLA Joseph M Puthusserry said the Centre should withhold the right to control the petroleum products in itself for the sake of common people.

"There is no fixed criteria for the frequent increase of the prices of the petroleum products. The difficulties that this hike in prices create to the common man is drastic," he said in the letter.

He said the petroleum companies follow the practice of re-examining the petroleum price between 1st and 15th of every month in accordance with the change in the international market.

"But the sad but an interesting fact is that only the hike in prices is taken into concern, the decrease of crude oil price in the international market is not at all taken into account by these companies," he said.

Thus, an increase in the price of crude oil, leads to an increase in the price of petroleum products, but when their is a decrease in price of crude oil the price of petroleum products does not decrease,he said.

The senior leader also alleged that the union government had increased the excise duty on petroleum products four times between November 12, 2014, and January 17, 2015 and by doing so it had swept away the benefits of the common public instead of decreasing the price of crude oil.