By IANS
New Delhi : A group of Indian ministers will meet Dec 14 to discuss retail prices of transport and cooking fuels, said an official here Monday.
“The petroleum ministry will put up before the group of ministers (GoM) the latest update on accumulating under-recoveries of oil marketing companies,” petroleum secretary M.S. Srinivasan said after inaugurating a conference of the Oil Industry Safety Directorate (OISD) here.
The projected under-recoveries of the state-owned oil marketing companies threaten to breach Rs.700 billion in 2007-08 due to surging crude prices in the international market, he said.
The GoM, headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, has Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, Consumer Affairs Minister Sharad Pawar, Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, and Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister T.R. Baalu as key members.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh constituted the GoM last month with the mandate to evolve a broad consensus over the sensitive issue of raising fuel prices in the light of the hardening trend in global crude oil prices.