Diesel sales down 0.8% in Apr-Dec

In a striking anomaly, India's projected 8 per cent GDP growth is not reflected in energy consumption for the first nine months of this fiscal.

Consumption of petroleum products in the first three quarters of the current year grew by barely 1.5 per cent "" from 78.1 million tonnes to 79.3 million tonnes.

More surprisingly, diesel consumption, a bellwether indicator, fell by 0.8 per cent in this period over the comparable year-ago period.

This is partly a result of adulteration with imported kerosene by parallel marketers. This import, however, was banned in November 2003, and diesel consumption in December 2003 did grow a modest 4.1 per cent.

Even so, the overall dip does not match the 36 per cent jump in commercial vehicles production and the increase in agricultural output, both warranting higher consumption of diesel.

The consumption of petrol also appears to lag the spurt in passenger vehicle sales. While passenger car sales grew 26.35 per cent in April-December, petrol sales grew just 3.7 per cent.

The big jump in consumption figures in the period comes from liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which grew by an encouraging 11.3 per cent. Industry sources attribute this growth to the "underpricing" of this cooking fuel.

Despite being subsidised by the Centre, it is still underpriced by around Rs 100 a cylinder, a difference that public sector oil companies bear.

Concurrently, kerosene consumption dropped 0.2 per cent over the year-ago period with an increasing number of people shifting to LPG.