Domestic liquefied petroleum gas refill price increased by ₹3 each to ₹1,055 in Hyderabad on Thursday, following upward revision in the LPG distributors’ commission.
Cooking gas distributors had been demanding a higher commission to offset increase in the cost of operations, especially a steep rise in diesel prices. But, the latest revision is unlikely to satisfy them.
“We were fighting for this sometime... but the increase only partly takes care of the hike in diesel price,” said Jagan Mohan Reddy, Telangana LPG Distributors’ Association president. “It is not just fuel price, but various other elements like wages and rent for the facilities that have increased,” he added.
“An increase in LPG refill price also means pumping more working capital,” he explained, pointing to how the cost of one lorry load of cylinders has doubled to ₹5.5 lakh.
The latest revision has increased the distributors’ commission from ₹60.71 to ₹63.71 (excluding tax) per cylinder. The increase, as per an annual escalation formula, is for 2019-20 and distributors have been told that the revision for 2020-21 will be given effect sometime later. The previous revision was with effect from September 2019 and increased the distributors’ commission by ₹10.50 per cylinder.
Any increase in the commission translates into higher price for the end-users. Mr. Reddy said that distributors were bound to intensify their efforts to impress on the government the need for more commission as the delivery staff and others in their establishment were also feeling the heat of inflation.
