Wednesday, June 1 2005 17:29 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Left leaders today (Jun 1, 2005) met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to explore ways of minimising the imminent hike in petrol and diesel prices.

Sources said Communist Party of India Marxist (CPM) general secretary Prakash Karat and his party colleague Sitaram Yechuri in their meeting with the PM, lasting about 30 minutes, impressed upon the need that public sector oil firms should bear larger burden arising from the increase in duties and spurt in global oil prices.

They indicated that upstream firms like Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) should be roped in to bear part of the Rs 2.87 a litre hike in petrol and Rs 3.73 per litre raise in diesel prices required in line with the hike in excise duty and road cess and raw material (crude oil) becoming dearer.

The Left leaders emphasised that the burden on common man should be the least, sources said.

Prime Minister may meet Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar tomorrow (Jun 2, 2005) to finalise scheme of things concerning fuel prices.