Fuel prices hike: The Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) on Saturday once again increased the fuel prices across the country with both petrol and diesel prices moving up by 18 paisa and 21 paisa respectively. A litre of petrol touched Rs 90.75 in Mumbai, while the price of diesel was revised to Rs 79.21 per litre, reported by PTI. Likewise in Delhi, petrol is being retailed at Rs 83.40 per litre and diesel moved to Rs 74.63 per litre. As the fuel rates continue its upward trend across the country, petrol and diesel prices in Kolkata was revised to Rs 85.03 and Rs 76.27 per litre respectively. This relentless hike in fuel prices across the country has given rise to inflation and has put a lot of pressure on the citizens. In other metro cities including Bengaluru and Chennai, petrol rate was revised to Rs 84.06 and Rs 86.88 respectively. Even diesel prices soared to new highs in these cities with a litre of diesel being sold at Rs 75.01 in Bengaluru and Rs 79.07 in Chennai.
Fuel prices in the national capital is the lowest in the country due to less tax implementation. In Delhi petrol has witnessed a hike of Rs 13.03 since January, whereas diesel price soared by Rs 14.54. Domestic fuel prices have reached its all-time highs over past few weeks on the back of falling Indian rupee against US dollars, soaring crude oil prices globally and bunch of taxed levied by the centre and state governments.
Nevertheless, the recent United States sanctions against Iranian oil import is expected to further damage India's oil supply which might result in more price variations.
In order to bring some relief to the citizen, recently West Bengal government reduced the excise duty on petrol and diesel by Re 1 per litre each. Following the same, even Karnataka government announced to cut cess on fuel prices and thus petrol and diesel prices across the state went cheaper by Rs 2 per litre each.
