Good days end, fuel prices rise

New Delhi: State owned oil-marketing companies on Sunday hiked petrol price by 82 paise a litre and diesel by 61 paise per litre due to increase in their international prices. There will also be a corresponding increase in other states depending upon the rate of value added tax (VAT) or imposition of sales tax.

This is the first increase in the prices of these two fuels since August 2014. After the increase, petrol will cost Rs 64.65 a litre in Hyderabad against Rs 63.81 and diesel will cost Rs 52.72 per litre against Rs 52.13. The government had cut fuel prices on February 4 before the Delhi elections by Rs 2.42 per litre in case of petrol and Rs 2.25 a litre for diesel. “There has been a steep increase in international prices of both petrol and diesel and the Rupee-US dollar exchange rate has also depreciated slightly since the last price revision. The combined impact of both these factors warrants increase in retail selling prices of both petrol and diesel,” said Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) on Sunday. 

Both petrol and diesel prices have been decontrolled and their prices are revised according to the international rates. Due to decline in crude oil prices in international markets, petrol had been cut by Rs 17.11 per litre in ten reductions since Augu-st and diesel by Rs 12.96 a litre since its deregulation in October. The reduction would ha-ve been bigger but for four consecutive excise duty hikes since November totalling Rs 7.75 a litre on petrol and Rs 7.50 on diesel.

The price of international crude oil has dipped from $112 a barrel (Indian Basket Crude Oil price) in June to $55 a barrel.