How competitive is the parallel LPG market after the price hike in the Budget?
I won’t claim that there is a level playing field even now. Still there is considerable subsidy left. Subsidy amount before the hike stood at Rs 95 per cylinder. Of that Rs 40 has gone. But still a subsidy amount of Rs 55 per cylinder exists. In spite of this, the price hike will definitely help the private sector LPG industry. This is one big step towards creating the level playing field. Is it mainly because of the price difference between the private and public sector LPG that your company has incurred losses? Will the situation change in the next fiscal? In the last 30 months, we have lost considerably. It is mainly because of two factors. One, our sourcing costs have shot up. From $105 a tonne, the international price of LPG went up to $350 per tonne. At the same time, when our sourcing cost has more than trebled, we could not increase our prices even by 50 per cent. We could not increase the price in accordance with the increase in our sourcing cost because we are unable to compe
