Petrol, diesel prices hiked for the second straight day

Petrol and diesel prices were hiked for the second consecutive day today, registering the fourth increase within the first week in June. In the latest hikes, petrol price has breached Rs-95-per-litre mark in Delhi and Kolkata.

Petrol in Delhi will now cost ₹95.31 per litre while diesel will cost ₹86.22 for a litre. In Kolkata, the price of a litre of petrol has been revised to ₹95.28 while diesel price has been hiked to ₹89.07 per litre. Chennai will now have to shell out ₹96.71 for petrol and ₹90.92 for diesel.

Mumbai, where petrol price had breached the triple figure mark earlier, saw the price reach new heights on Monday. Mumbaikars will now have to pay ₹101.52 for every litre of petrol, and ₹93.58 for a litre of diesel.

Petrol and diesel prices have been hiked for the 20th time within 35 days since last month. Since May 4, when the current spate of hikes started, petrol and diesel prices have been raised by almost ₹5 and ₹6 per litre respectively. This is one of the steepest hikes in such a short span of time in recent months.

The brief gains made during a 66-day pause on rate hike, when five states went to assembly polls, have been undone in a matter of just over a month. Oil companies had reduced petrol and diesel rates by 77 paise and 74 paise a litre between March 24 and May 3.

Petrol price has reached all-time high in several places by breaching the Rs-100 mark in cities like Mumbai, Ratnagiri, Parbhani, Aurangabad, Jaisalmer, Ganganagar, Banswara, Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, Guntur and Kakinada.

The recent spate of hike in fuel prices come despite lowering demands across the country as well as global crude prices going down. Fuel prices in India continue to be high sue to steep rate of taxes imposed by the Centre and state governments. The excise duty and freight charges imposed by the central government along with the VAT imposed by the state governments contribute 60% of the retail price of petrol and 54% of diesel.