Petrol and diesel prices slashed substantially: Know fuel rates in your city

The central government on Saturday night announced major excise duty on petrol and diesel in order to bring relief to motorists and common people. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the government has reduced excise duty on petrol and diesel by ₹8 per litre and ₹6 per litre respectively. With this, petrol and diesel across India have become cheaper by ₹9.5 per litre and ₹7 per litre respectively. With this, prices of petrol and diesel have fallen on 22nd May after remaining unchanged for the last 45 days.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman's announcement came at a time when retail inflation surged to an eight-year high in April 2022, driven by rising fuel prices. After a four and half month hiatus petrol and diesel prices started rising again in March this year, putting pressure on motorists and on common people as well. The government received flak for that. In such a situation the announcement of reducing excise duty comes as a major relief for the motorists and non-motorists as well.

After the price reduction, petrol price in Delhi on Sunday stands at ₹96.72 a litre as against ₹105.41 a litre on Saturday, while diesel costs ₹89.62 a litre as opposed to ₹96.67 on Saturday. In Mumbai, one litre of petrol costs ₹111.35 and a litre of diesel costs ₹97.28. In Chennai, petrol and diesel prices are at ₹102.65 and ₹94.24 per litre, respectively. In Kolkata, the price of petrol is ₹106.03 and diesel costs ₹92.76 a litre. In Bengaluru, one litre of petrol costs ₹101.94 and one litre of diesel costs ₹87.89. In Gurugram, one litre of petrol costs ₹97.81 and ₹90.05 for one litre of diesel.

Excise duty on petrol and diesel were reduced earlier in early November last year. The government announced an excise duty cut of ₹5 per litre for petrol and ₹10 per litre for diesel. Now, with the fresh cuts in excise duty, the total tax incidence reduction for petrol and diesel becomes ₹13 per litre and ₹16 per litre respectively.

The central government increased taxes on petrol to the highest level of ₹32.9 per litre in 2020, while taxes on diesel too was increased to ₹31.8 per litre. With the latest tax cut, the central tax incidence on petrol comes down to ₹19.9 a litre and ₹15.8 a litre on diesel. The excise duty hikes of 2020 had taken central taxes on petrol to their highest level of ₹32.9 per litre and that on diesel to ₹31.8 a litre. After the latest excise cut, the incidence of central tax on petrol will come down to ₹19.9 a litre and that on diesel to ₹15.8 per litre.