The government on Thursday approved over 20,000 crore rupees in additional cash subsidy to state-owned oil companies to compensate them for selling fuel below cost in 2010-11 fiscal. With this, the government has paid a total of 40,912 crore rupees in subsidy to oil companies in 2010-11 financial year. The finance ministry today issued letter giving 11,027 crore rupees in cash compensation to Indian Oil Corp (IOC), 4,595 crore rupees to Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) and 4,379 crore rupees to Hindustan Petroleum. Earlier the government had in two previous installments given 20,911 crore rupees to make up for part of the revenues oil companies lost on selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene below cost. The cash subsidy payout is more than half of the over 78,000 crore rupees that the three firms lost on selling auto and cooking fuel below their imported cost in 2010-11 fiscal.Official sources said that at current prices, the total revenue loss in current fiscal is estimated at 180,208 crore rupees. The compensation to the oil marketing companies comes amidst reports that the prices are fuel are likely to be revised.