NEW DELHI: India's oil ministry has sought an additional subsidy of 420 billion rupees ($8 billion) from the government for the six months ending March 2012, Oil Secretary G.C. Chaturvedi said on Wednesday.

The subsidy is used to partially compensate state-run oil marketing firms for selling fuels at state-set cheaper rates. Oil marketing firms' had earlier racked up revenue losses of 210 billion rupees in the July-September quarter on subsidised sale of fuels, of which, 70 billion rupees has been covered by upstream companies.