Brake on petrol, diesel price rise after three consecutive days of hikes
Petrol and diesel prices remained unchanged on Monday after witnessing hike over more than a week. Oil companies kept check on the rise in price, much to the relief of consumers, after 9 days of hikes in the last 10 days.
Price of petrol and diesel remained at Sunday's level at ₹82.34 per litre for diesel in the national capital, and at ₹72.42 a litre for diesel. On Sunday, petrol price was hiked by 24 paise per litre and diesel by 27 paise as hopes of a vaccine development led to a rally in international oil prices.
However, the relief is small and may be short-lived in future. After almost a two-month hiatus, oil companies started to revise price of petrol and diesel from November 20. Since then, petrol prices went up by ₹1.28 per litre and diesel by ₹1.96 a litre in the last 10 days. There was a gap of one day last week when the prices remain unchanged.
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Before November 20, petrol prices were not hiked since September 22 while the price of diesel also remained unchanged since October 2.
The 58-day hiatus in petrol price revision and 48-day status quo on diesel rates were preceded by no change in rates between June 30 and August 15 and a 85-day status quo between March 17 and June 6.
The Indian oil marketing companies - Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd - usually revise rates of petrol and diesel on a daily basis, based on international oil price and foreign exchange rates. However, since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, the companies had decided to calibrate the rates to avoid volatility in retail prices.
But with crude on the boil again on news of a successful coronavirus vaccine launch soon, the patience was lost by OMCs who finally resorted to price increase to cover for their under recovery on the sale of two petroleum products.
