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The decision to hike diesel prices and limiting the availability of subsidised cooking gas cylinders is justified since it is essential to help India be self-sufficient in meeting its energy requirements, Power and Corporate Affairs Minister M Veerappa Moily said here on Tuesday. He was addressing the Corporate Governance Summit-2012, hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Moily observed that it was no longer viable for India to borrow money from international financial institutions, and therefore the resources required to import crude oil must be generated from within the country. “Eighty percent of our petroleum products are imported. Do you want all our petroleum belts to go dry? Do you want that all the engines of growth should stop? I do not think you can stop it. From where do you get this money? Money has to be generated from its own resources. To purchase oil, those days of borrowing money from the World Bank are gone. We need to stand on our own to sustain ourselves,” Moily said. Earlier on Thursday, the government raised diesel prices by Rs.5 per litre, the first such move in 15 months, aimed at shoring up a weak fiscal position. The cabinet also decided to limit the number of subsidised cooking gas cylinders per household to six per year, a move seen to be hitting the poor hard. A day later, the government gave its nod to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in retail sector, causing widespread furore across political spectrum, including its allies.

Diesel price hike a move to make country self-sufficient in energy: Moily