India spends ₹1.7 lakh crore to shield economy from global energy shocks
About Rs 1,600-1,700 crore per day, over Rs 1 lakh crore in 10 weeks. That’s the cost that state-owned oil firms incur for insulating Indian consumers from the global energy shock but ever-widening losses are now raising questions on how long they can continue bearing the cost without financially capitulating. Since the war broke out in the Middle East 10 weeks ago, state-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) have ensured uninterrupted supplies of petrol, diesel and cooking gas LPG at rates that are way below cost, unlike many global energy systems that imposed rationing or passed through steep price increases. This has resulted in the three OMCs – Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) – running record high under-recoveries (the difference between cost and retail selling price), two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. The combined under-recovery on petrol, diesel and cooking gas LPG is Rs 1,600 crore to Rs 1,700 crore daily, they said, adding total under-recovery for the 10 weeks is now well over Rs 1 lakh crore. Despite a 50 per cent surge in input crude oil prices, petrol and diesel continue to be priced at a two-year-old rate of Rs 94.77 a litre and Rs 87.67 per litre respectively. Domestic cooking gas LPG prices were raised in March by Rs 60 per cylinder, but they are still way lower than the actual cost. The revenues that OMCs earn from selling fuel are the only source that is used by them to buy crude oil (raw material), build infrastructure to process it into fuel and lay a network to take the product to consumers. For 10 weeks, the OMCs have managed to insulate the Indian market but now the cost is visible, sources said adding they may have to borrow more to meet the working capital requirement (buying of crude oil). While countries from Japan to the United Kingdom have raised petrol and diesel prices by up to 30 per cent since the start of the West Asia conflict, fuel prices in India continue at two-year-old levels. This despite the war disrupting India’s import of 40 per cent of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel), 90 per cent cooking gas LPG and 65 per cent natural gas (used to generate electricity, make fertiliser, turned into CNG and piped to household kitchens for cooking). While the three OMCs have worked overtime to keep the supply lines running even when demand spiked due to panic buying, the government intervention included excise duty reductions to absorb part of the fuel cost burden. The special additional excise duty on petrol was cut to Rs 3 per litre from Rs 13, while excise duty on diesel was reduced to zero from Rs 10 per litre. The government has taken a hit of Rs 14,000 crore a month in cutting the excise duty, sources said.
DRDO successfully carries out long-duration test of full-scale scramjet combustor
Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) of DRDO has achieved a path-breaking milestone in the development of Hypersonic Missiles by successfully conducting an extensive long-duration test of its Actively Cooled Full Scale Scramjet Combustor, a press release said. A run-time of over 1,200 seconds was achieved at the state-of-the-art Scramjet Connect Pipe Test (SCPT) Facility in Hyderabad on May 09, 2026, building upon the earlier successful test of over 700 seconds conducted in January this year. According to the release, the Combustor has been designed & developed by DRDL and realised by industry partners. This successful test positions India at the forefront of advanced aerospace capabilities and continuously emerging war technologies. The remarkable feat is achieved through a cutting-edge supersonic air-breathing engine, which utilises indigenously developed liquid hydrocarbon endothermic fuel, high-temperature thermal barrier coating & advanced manufacturing processes. The ground tests conducted at the SCPT facility have successfully validated the design of the advanced active cooled scramjet combustor as well as the capabilities of the state-of-the-art test facility. The missile was flight tested with Multiple payloads, targeted to different targets spatially distributed over a large geographical area in the Indian Ocean Region.