Hardeep Singh Puri, the Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, stated on Friday that no country has told India to stop purchasing oil from Russia and that India has a moral responsibility to provide energy to its citizens. He added that India will continue to purchase oil from wherever it is necessary.
During this meeting, it was announced to launch of a New Energy Task Force to support the clean energy transition and large-scale integration of renewable energy between India and the US.
After this, while answering the questions of journalists, the Union Minister openly answered on oil imports from Russia. Keeping his point, he said that it is the moral duty of the Government of India to provide energy to its people and India will buy oil from where it will get. Responding to the import of oil from Russia, the Union Minister said, no one has forbidden India to buy oil from Russia. He said that India will buy oil from anywhere, the simple reason is that such a discussion cannot be taken to the consumer population of India.
On petrol and diesel prices, the Union Minister said, "If there is an increase of 43-46 percent in North America, then in India we only allow an increase of 2% or more in prices." Whereas in terms of gas, global prices have gone up by 260-280 percent, and our ability to control the increase in gas prices is around 70 percent.