The Union government on Wednesday announced a one-time grant of Rs 22,000 crore to three state-owned fuel companies – Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited.

Union Minister Anurag Thakur said the grant will help the companies to cover the losses they had incurred after selling liquefied petroleum gas to consumers at heavily discounted cost from June 2020 to June 2022.

The international prices of LPG increased by 300% between June 2020 to June 2022, PTI reported, citing an official statement. During this period, the domestic prices rose by 72% only.

“However, to insulate consumers from fluctuations in international LPG prices, the cost increase was not fully passed on to consumers of domestic LPG,” the statement said. “Accordingly, domestic LPG prices have risen by only 72% during this period...this led to significant losses for the three firms.”

“Despite these losses, the three PSU [public sector undertaking] OMCs [oil marketing companies] have ensured continuous supplies of this essential cooking fuel in the country,” Thakur said. “The government has therefore decided to give a one-time grant to the three PSU OMCs for these losses in domestic LPG.”’

Among other announcement, Thakur also said that productivity-linked bonus of Rs 1,832 crore will be given to 11.27 lakh employees of Indian Railways. “It will be a bonus of 78 days and Rs 17,951 will be its maximum limit,” he added.