Petrol-Diesel / Fuel prices increased for 5th time this week, petrol price nears ₹100 in Mumbai

New Delhi: The prices of petrol and diesel increased again on Sunday. In national capital Delhi, the increase of 24 paise took the petrol price to ₹92.58 per litre; diesel is retailing at ₹83.22 per litre after recording a jump of 27 paise.

In Rajasthan's Sriganganagar, Indore, Bhopal, Rewa, Anuppur Iin Madhya Pradesh) and Parbhani in Maharashtra, the price of petrol has crossed the ₹100 mark, according to Hindustan Times' sister publication Livehindustan.

In Mumbai, the petrol is priced at ₹98.88 per litre, while diesel price has reached ₹90.40 a litre. These have been priced at ₹94.31 a litred and ₹88.07 per litre in Chennai. In Kolkata, the price of petrol has reached ₹92.67 per litre and diesel is retailing at ₹86.06 per litre.

On Friday, petrol price was hiked by 29 paise per litre and diesel by 34 paise a litre by state-owned fuel retailers.

Fuel prices differ from state to state depending on the incidence of local taxes such as value-added tax (VAT) and freight charges. Rajasthan levies the highest VAT on petrol in the country, followed by Madhya Pradesh.

This is the fifth increase in prices this week and ninth hike since May 4, when the state-owned oil firms ended a hiatus in rate revision they observed during assembly elections.

Retail prices of petrol and diesel in India are aligned with their international rates of the previous day. International oil prices and rupee-dollar exchange rate impact domestic pump prices as India imports over 80% crude oil it processes and pays in dollar.

Since March last year, when the government raised excise duty on fuel to an all-time high, petrol price has increased by nearly ₹23 per litre (after accounting for a handful of occasions when rates fell) and diesel by over ₹20.

Oil companies, who have in recent months resorted to unexplained freeze in rate revision, had hit a pause button after cutting prices marginally on April 15. This coincided with electioneering hitting a peak to elect new governments in five states including West Bengal.

According to state-run oil marketing companies, there are two main reasons for the recent spike in fuel prices – high international oil rates and recovery of past revenue losses that companies had occurred for keeping any upward price movement of the two politically sensitive fuels under pause for 66 days since February 27 because of assembly elections in four states and one Union territory. The pump price rally in India started a day after poll results on May 4.

The government deregulated the pricing of petrol on June 26, 2010 and diesel on October 19, 2014. Accordingly, state-run retailers are free to change pump prices every day.

Central and state taxes make up for 60 per cent of the retail selling price of petrol and over 54 per cent of diesel. The union government levies ₹32.90 per litre of excise duty on petrol and ₹31.80 on diesel.