The price of liquified petroleum gas, or LPG, has been increased by Rs 50 per cylinder, Union Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Monday.

The hike in prices will apply to all consumers, whether or not they are eligible for subsidies under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. The price of a 14.2-kg LPG cylinder will rise to Rs 853 for regular users and Rs 553 for Ujjwala scheme beneficiaries.

The hike will be reviewed every 15 days and altered based on international prices, the minister added.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas launched the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana in May 2016 as a “flagship scheme with an aim to make clean cooking fuel, such as liquefied petroleum gas, accessible to rural households, which were otherwise using traditional cooking fuels such as firewood, coal, cow-dung cakes etc.”.

The scheme provides cash assistance to eligible consumers.

Criticising the Centre over the hike, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said “Looting, extortion, fraud…all have become synonymous with the Modi government.”

Separately, the Union government also announced that the excise duty on petrol and diesel will be increased by Rs 2 each. However this will not impact the retail prices for consumers.

The minister said that both measures aim to ease the financial burden on public sector oil marketing companies to allow them to offset their losses from selling cooking gas. He said that public sector companies have been selling LPG to households at a loss to shield consumers from the impact of rising international gas prices.

"International price of LPG has been going up,” the minister explained. “The rate of increase has been absorbed by the OMCs [oil marketing companies]…The Rs 50 increase on LPG cylinders addresses the current under-recovery and not the backlog. For the baclog, we will be making a request to the Finance Ministry.”