After weekend respite, petrol, diesel prices hiked again

After the weekend respite, price of petrol and diesel have been hiked once again on Monday. This is the fifth hike in the last seven days.

According to the latest fuel price hike, petrol price has gone up by 26 paise per litre and diesel price has been increased by 33 paise per litre.

The petrol price hike will mean consumers in the national capital will have to dish out ₹91.53 for a litre from today. To buy diesel, Delhiites will have to pay ₹82.06 per litre.

In Mumbai, the price of petrol is inching closer to the Rs-100-per-litre mark. Monday's hike has taken the price to ₹97.86 per litre in the city. The diesel price hike will mean Mumbai will have to pay ₹89.17 for a litre from today.

Among other metro cities, Chennai has seen the petrol price reach ₹93.38 per litre and diesel price at ₹86.96 per litre after today's hike. In Kolkata, a litre of petrol will cost ₹91.66 while diesel wil cost ₹84.90 per litre from today.

In some places, the price of petrol has breached the Rs-100-per-litre mark. Sri Ganganagar district in Rajasthan will now shell out ₹102.42 for a litre and Anuppur in Madhya Pradesh will have to pay ₹102.12 for petrol. This is the second time this year that petrol price have crossed the three-figure mark in some places.

In the past one week, fuel prices have gone up by ₹1.13 per litre for petrol and ₹1.33 per litre for diesel. Last week, oil companies began hiking fuel prices on Tuesday (May 4) and continued for four consecutive days.

On Tuesday, petrol and diesel prices were increased by 15 paise and 18 paise per litre. On Wednesday, oil companies increased price of a litre petrol by 19 paise, while the price of diesel went up by 21 paise for every litre. On Thursday, petrol price by 25 paise per litre and diesel by 30 paise per litre. Friday saw the fourth straight hike and the biggest till now with petrol price going up by 28 paise per litre while diesel went up by 31 paise per litre.

The fuel prices remained unchanged for 18 days till May 3, till the day after the state assembly poll results came out. The last time India saw hike in fuel prices was before March 24, days before five states went into polls. There were a couple of price reductions between March 24 and April 15.

However, since the beginning of the year, India witnessed as many as 26 hikes in petrol and diesel prices running up to the elections. Those hikes had shot up petrol price by ₹7.46 per litre and diesel price by ₹7.60 a litre.