Mumbai: Here’s another one that will send your household expenses skyrocketing. By the time you read this, the prices of natural gas will have gone up.
Mahanagar Gas Limited has increased the price of CNG or compressed natural gas (what you tank up in your car) with immediate effect. Also, the utility slabs for piped natural gas or PNG have been reduced.
This hike in price and reduction in slabs could possibly have a cascading effect on taxi and autorickshaw fares. The auto and taxi unions, as it is, have been agitating for a hike in fares.
In a press statement issued on Friday, Mahanagar Gas Limited said that it has been “constrained” to increase the price of CNG by Rs3/kg in Mumbai effective from the night of September 6.
The press statement further said that this hike was being introduced to recover part of increase in input costs, especially towards sudden and rapid depreciation of the rupee against the US dollar.
Reacting to this hike, Thampi Kurien of the Mumbai Rickshawmen’s Union said, “Since the last fare hike in October 2012, prices of CNG have increased by Rs 5.85. Now, CNG will cost us almost Rs40 per kg. This is really hitting our income and is nullifying the effect of the fare hike. We are talking to the transport commissioner to convene a meeting of all rickshaw unions so that the issue of a fare hike, pending since May this year, can be discussed.”
The reduced slabs of piped cooking gas will be effective from Saturday. This means you will pay a higher amount for a certain amount of cooking gas as compared to what you would have paid earlier.
DNA
