Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Petroleum minister Murli Deora met on Thursday to discuss the amount of compensation to be given to state run PSUs to cover losses suffered by selling fuels under the market price. However the ministers failed to make any decision in the meeting.

The petroleum ministry had earlier requested the finance ministry to issue compensation as bonds to the ailing fuel companies. However the finance ministry has only agreed to offer less than half of the total Rs 31,700 crore requested.

‘‘No decision was taken... they have not agreed to our demand... we are discussing,’’ Deora said after the meeting. Finance ministry is expected to rework the revenue loss figures presented by the petroleum ministry and revert in a few days.

According to a petroleum ministry estimate a loss of Rs 31,700 crore would be incurred on sale of cooking oil this fiscal year. The ministry advocates that oil firms should have the freedom to fix petrol prices while being allowed to gradually increase diesel rates if the adequate compensation is not given. However a rise in fuel price is not permissible because of the high inflation.

The finance ministry said that this year is not an “exceptional year” and suggests the same formula which was applied in 2006-07 to be implemented this year as well. In the arrangement the government would share one-third of the revenue loss on fuel sales.

The oil ministry demands that the government honors its commitment of making up for the entire revenue loss on cooking gas and kerosene. The loss on auto fuel is to be shared by upstream firms like ONGC and GAIL.

As for the performance of PSUs, Indian Oil Corporation reported profits of Rs 284 crore while both Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum reported losses of Rs159 crore and Rs137 crore, respectively.