Govt looking for alternative market for fuel purchase: Puri
Darpan News Desk IANS, 14 Mar, 2022 01:08 PM
New Delhi, March 14 (IANS) Union Minister for Petroleum Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday informed the Rajya Sabha that the government is looking for an alternate market for fuel purchase amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Responding to a question during 'Question Hour', he said that the government has been exploring all options such as currency to facilitate purchase, supply of oil in markets, insurance and freight.
In response to Congress lawmaker Shakti Singh Gohil's question whether the government intends to reduce diesel rates, the Minister said that the prices of diesel were deregulated. "Whenever we felt that the common man needed more relief, we went ahead and reduced the price. In November 2021, we brought down the fuel prices by Rs 10," Puri said in the House.
Congress MP K.C. Venugopal said that petrol prices have increased 63 times and diesel 61 times. He also said that since November, the government has not hiked the price and asked whether the price will remain the same or will be a hike or not.
The Petroleum Minister also informed that Venezuela is a country which was subjected to sanctions by another country. He further said that there was hope and expectation that oil from other sanctioned countries would become available, the Organisation of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) countries would increase their oil production and there would be persuasion by the international community in this regard.
Puri also said that neither the union government nor the oil companies are going to float oil bonds.
"All legitimate steps would be taken to maintain prices of oil," he said.
Chief Secretary H.K. Diwedi held an emergency meeting with the District Magistrates and Superintendent of Polices of West and East Burdwan, Bankura, Birbhum, Hooghly, and Howrah on Thursday evening and took stock of the situation. After that the state government decided to deploy the Army in certain areas. However, NDRF teams have been kept on standby.
According to sources, Amarinder Singh will convene a meeting of leaders close to him in a few days to consider the formation of his new party, which will include all the leaders of the anti-Sidhu faction.
The arrested persons have been identified as Abdul Khalid, Shriram Chaurasia, Zishan Ahmad, Vikas Kesarwani and Krishna Kumar. Inspector (Kareli) Anupam Sharma said the arrested persons had sold SIM cards to law-breakers at high prices after creating fake IDs.
The ex-CM of Punjab recalled that Rawat himself had publicly stated after meeting him that he was satisfied by his government's track record on the 2017 poll promises.
It is learnt that Channi in his first meeting with the Prime Minister after becoming chief minister of Punjab requested that the Centre take back its decision to postpone paddy procurement by 10 days. The Centre has postponed the procurement of paddy by 10 days due to rain in Punjab and Haryana. Earlier the procurement was supposed to start from October 1 but now it will start from October 11.
Scotching speculation to the contrary, former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday made it clear he was not joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but had no intention of continuing in the Congress either, which he said was going downhill with senior leaders completely ignored and not given a voice.
