CNG price hiked for third time since April; impact of dollar appreciation against rupee, says Indraprastha Gas

New Delhi: CNG price in Delhi and its suburbs was hiked on 1 September—for the third time since April, due to rise in input cost following appreciation of US dollar against the rupee. “This revision in prices would result in an increase of Rs 0.50 per kg in the consumer prices of CNG in Delhi, Rewari, Gurugram and Karnal, and Rs 0.55 per kg in Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad,” Indraprastha Gas Ltd (IGL), the city gas operator in the national capital region, said in a statement. The new consumer price will be Rs 47.10 per kg in Delhi and Rs 53.50 per kg in Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad. The price of CNG sold to automobiles in Gurugram and Rewari would be Rs 58.95 per kg and in Karnal it would be Rs 55.95, IGL said. This is the third increase in rates since April and the eighth since April 2018. Rates were last revised upwards by 90 paise per kg in July. Prior to that, CNG price was hiked in April by Re 1 per kg because of a rise in the price of domestic natural gas and fall in rupee’s value against the dollar. [caption id=“attachment_2530258” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] In all, rates have gone up by Rs 7.39 per kg since April 2018. Rates of CNG and PNG vary in different cities due to the incidence of local taxes. IGL said it will continue to offer a discount of Rs 1.50 per kg in the selling prices of CNG for filling between 12.00 am to 6.00 am at select outlets in Delhi, Noida, Greater Noida, and Ghaziabad. “Thus, the consumer price of CNG would be Rs 45.60 per kg in Delhi and Rs 52.00 per kg in Noida, Greater Noida & Ghaziabad during 12.00 am to 6.00 am at the select CNG stations,” it said. Explaining the reasons for the CNG price hike, an official spokesperson of IGL said the marginal revision has been necessitated due to the recent appreciation of US dollar against rupee and increase in operational expenses since the last price revision.

The base price of natural gas being procured by IGL from all sources is dollar-linked, thereby making the entire input price totally dependent on price of dollar vis-a-vis rupee. “However, this increase would have a marginal impact on the per km running cost of vehicles. For autos, the increase would translate to just over 1 paisa per km, for taxi it would be 2 paisa per km,” IGL said.

“With the revised price, CNG would still offer over 52 percent savings towards the running cost when compared to petrol driven vehicles at the current level of prices. When compared to diesel driven vehicles, the economics in favour of CNG at revised price would be over 27 percent,” it said. IGL sells CNG to over 10.5 lakh vehicles in the national capital region through a network of over 500 CNG stations. It also supplies PNG to over 11.20 lakh households in Delhi and NCR cities.