It's been 23 days and petrol, diesel prices are steady

It's been 23 days and surprisingly, the prices of petrol and diesel are unchanged. Interestingly, since the assembly elections of five states across India have been announced, the oil marketing companies have kept the pricing of motor fuels unchanged, despite the crude oil price increased in the international market.

The last price change was announced on February 27. Currently, petrol in Mumbai costs ₹97.57 per litre, while diesel costs ₹88.60 per litre. In New Delhi, petrol and diesel costs per litre are ₹91.17 and ₹81.47, respectively.

However, despite the fuel prices are unchanged for 23 consecutive days, it is not helping in bringing down the fuel prices that have crossed the ₹100 per litre mark in several parts of the country.

Since the beginning of February 2021, crude oil pricing has increased more than $7 per barrel pushing thew oil marketing companies to hike fuel prices on 14 occasions raising the prices by ₹4.22 per litre for petrol and by ₹4.34 a litre for diesel in the national capital.

The motor fuel prices were revised upward a total of 26 times in 2021 with petrol and diesel prices increased by ₹7.46 and ₹7.60 per litre respectively so far in 2021.

Despite the pause in the price hike, the price of motor fuels is likely to go higher in coming days, if OMC's forecasts are to be true. Once the daily revision resumes again post assembly elections in various states, the price of petrol and diesel would go higher as OPEC+ has announced a production cut extension till the end of April.

The pump prices of both petrol and diesel include state and central government taxes along with the dealer commission. While the crude oil price hike has been a reason behind the recent price surge of motor fuels in India, the high rate of tax too is blamed for this. There have been demands for bringing petrol and diesel under the GST ambit in a bid to reduce the burden on the common people.