But India's bold plans to reform the decades-old regulations are meeting stiff resistance. Opposition parties have called for a nationwide strike for Monday over fuel-price rises that threaten to stoke India's double-digit inflation further.

For citizens, however, the move portends a bigger hole in their pocket.

Planners say India's subsidies are too much for a nation that is facing a consolidated fiscal deficit of 8.4 percent.

As world leaders pledged fiscal tight-belting at the G-20 summit in Toronto, India said it has its plans in place to halve its deficit in three to four years. Ahead of the summit, India removed subsidies which artificially kept cost of petrol lower than its market value -- as a result, the prices of gasoline and cooking fuel, like kerosene and kitchen gas, shot up.