India’s petrol, aviation turbine fuel, and LPG consumption shot up in October this year compared to the same month last year, reflecting the rising demand for these fuels in a growing economy.

While petrol sales have gone up by 7.3 per cent, LPG consumption surged by 7.5 per cent and jet fuel demand increased 2.5 per cent year-on-year during the festive season, according to data released by the public sector oil companies on Friday.

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However, diesel sales declined by 3.3 per cent as the extended monsoon which led to the delay in the sowing season, impacted demand for the fuel in the farm sector.

Petrol sales of Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, and Hindustan Petroleum, which account for over 90 per cent of the total market, increased 3.1 million tonnes during October from 2.87 million tonnes in the same month last year. This comes against the backdrop of rising sales of cars, SUVs and two-wheelers in both urban and rural areas of the country.

The increase in air travel, which comes on the back of a surging middle class that is benefiting from higher economic growth, drove up the consumption of jet fuel to 6,47,700 tonnes during October 2024.

Domestic airlines flew 1.30 crore passengers in September, which is 6.38 per cent higher compared to the year-ago period, according to the latest data.

Cooking gas LPG sales were up 7.5 per cent year-on-year at 2.82 million tonnes in October 2024. LPG consumption is now 13.1 per cent higher than in October 2022.* *LPG consumption has been on the rise with as many as 10.33 crore deposit-free LPG connections being issued under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) to women from poor households across the country as of August 1, 2024, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Suresh Gopi informed the Lok Sabha recently.

The target to release 8 crore connections was achieved in September 2019. To cover the remaining poor households, the second phase of the scheme Ujjwala 2.0 was launched in August 2021 and by January 2023, 1.60 crore connections had been released. Further, in view of fresh requests, in September 2023, the government approved the release of an additional 75 lakh PMUY connections.

The public sector oil marketing companies have completed the release of these 75 lakh PMUY connections as of July 8, 2024, the minister said.

Besides, other steps have been taken to popularize LPG such as spreading awareness about the advantages of using LPG over other conventional fuels and the safe usage of cooking gas through LPG Panchayats and awareness camps

As a result of these efforts, the per capita consumption for PMUY beneficiaries has improved to 3.95 refills in FY 2023-24, the minister added.