Petroleum Minister S Jaipal Reddy on Wednesday sought a meeting of Empowered Group of Ministers, EGoM, to decide on revising diesel and LPG prices. He told reporters in New Delhi on Wednesday that the meeting is expected to take place before the winter session of Parliament.

Petroleum Secretary G C Chaturvedi told reporters in New Delhi that oil marketing companies will take a decision over raising the prices of petrol as it is a deregulated item. He said that Ministry has asked for a cash subsidy of over 28,000 crore rupees from the Finance Ministry to partially compensate state-owned oil firms for losses they incurred on selling fuel below cost in the first half this fiscal.

He said that Oil marketing companies lost 43,526 crore rupees in the April-June quarter on selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene at government-controlled rates, which are below cost.

AIR Correspondent reports that oil companies are suffering losses in view of the rising crude oil prices and depreciating value of rupee against the dollar.

The Petroleum Secretary, Mr. Chaturvedi earlier said that it is for the state-owned oil companies to decide on petrol price hike as it is a deregulated commodity.

On Tuesday, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited's Director-Finance, B Mukherjee had said that oil firms may have to raise petrol prices, as they were losing 1.50 per rupees a litre at the current rates.

Besides petrol, state owned oil firms are losing 333 crore rupees per day on selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene below cost. At the current rate, the industry is projected to lose 1,21,459 crore rupees in revenue on the sale of diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene in the full fiscal.