Petrol, diesel prices hiked for the first time in over a month

Petrol and diesel prices have been revised once again across India after a gap of 20 days. Fuel prices have remained constant since April 15 when the last price revision was implemented amid the Covid-19 crisis.

After the fresh hike, the price of a litre of petrol will now be ₹90.55 in the national capital. The price of petrol in Delhi has gone up by 15 paise per litre. The diesel price has also received a hike of 18 paise and will cost ₹80.91 in Delhi.

In Mumbai, the price of petrol has seen a hike of 12 paise per litre and will now cost ₹96.95. Similarly diesel price In Mumbai has gone up by 17 paise and will cost ₹87.98 per litre.

In Chennai, petrol will cost ₹92.55 per litre after a 12-paise hike while diesel price has seen a hike of 15 paise per litre and will cost ₹85.90.

This is the first fuel price hike in India in over a month. On April 15, the price of petrol and diesel were reduced by 14 paise and 16 paise per litre respectively. In fact, since March 24 this year, the price of petrol has seen a reduction of 77 paise per litre and diesel by 74 paise per litre.

However, the year had started on a different note. Since the start of the year, fuel prices shot up to record level before the price reductions were implemented. There were as many as 26 hikes since January that shot up petrol price by ₹7.46 per litre and diesel price by ₹7.60 a litre.

The recent hike in fuel prices come even as fuel demand in India is witnessing a slump in the light of the second wave of the pandemic induced travel restrictions. According to reports, the overall fuel demand in India was down by around 7% by the end of April 2021, as compared to April 2019. The hike in fuel prices come despite crude oil prices dropping in the international market.