Centre says Fuel price up 50% in rest of world

New Delhi: Amid the almost-daily increase in fuel prices, petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday said that though Russia-Ukraine war has impacted fuel prices across the world, the increase in India worked out to be only 5 per cent during April 2021 and March 2022 as against over 50 per cent in some developed and developing nations.

Intervening in the short duration discussion in the Lok Sabha on the situation in ukraine, the minister rejected the Opposition's charge that ’Operation Ganga’, which brought students studying in Ukraine back home, was a transport mission and not an evacuation operation.

“We are not the only country impacted by the war,” Puri said. The Russia-Ukraine war has affected the entire world, he added.

He said that gasoline price increase at pump between April 2021 and March 2022 in the USA was 51 per cent, Canada (52 per cent), Germany (55 per cent), the UK (55 per cent), France (50 per cent), Spain (58 per cent), Sri Lanka (55 per cent). “Our percentage increase is one-tenth of what it is elsewhere,” he said.

Puri also pointed out that the price of natural gas has shot up several times in the international market after the outbreak of the war.