NEW DELHI, NOV 22: The Government will go ahead with the phased dismantling of administered pricing mechanism (APM) of petroleum products, which is likely to reduce consumer cost by about 25 per cent, and has decided to continue the subsidy on kerosene while keeping the option open on cooking gas (LPG)."There is no difference of views between the petroleum and finance ministries on the dismantling of the APM by 2002. Only a few issues like cutting down of subsidy on lpg have to be decided," petroleum minister Vazhappady K Ramamurthy here.Maintaining that LPG subsidy would be cut down to 15 per cent by the terminal year and passed on to general budget, he said "subsidy is a sensitive issue concerning lakhs of people. We have not yet taken any decision (on the quantum of subsidy in the intervening period). LPG is not the focal point."The minister made it clear that oil sector liberalisation was a carefully calculated package agreed to by the government after consultations between the finance andpetroleum ministries and there was no "rethinking'' on the issue.He also ruled out any "cess" on diesel to finance the ambitious infrastructure road projects. Ramamurthy said that oil import bill during the current fiscal was expected to be around $ 8.4 billion, which has already been cleared by the cabinet. "We expect the downtrend in the international oil markets to continue for two more years and during this period we would import maximum crude," he said adding that there would be no significant saving on this account because consumption was expected to rise by upto 10 per cent as against targeted seven per cent during the current financial year.IOC disinvestmentNEW DELHI: The government has decided to put on hold disinvestment of its holdings in Indian Oil Corporation and Gas Authority of India through the GDR route,petroleum minister V K Ramamurthy said.
