Petrol, diesel prices hiked after day’s gap, Check latest rates

​​​​​​NEW DELHI: Fuel prices have been hiked by state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) on Tuesday following an increase in global crude oil rates. The fresh hike comes a day after prices were left unchanged.

After the fresh hike, petrol rates across the country have increased by roughly 23 paise and diesel prices have gone up by 25 paise.

In Dehli, petrol’s retail price has increased to Rs 93.44 per litre and diesel now costs Rs 84.32 per litre. The price of petrol in Mumbai is just 30 paise short of crossing Rs 100 per litre and diesel price is slowly creeping towards Rs 92 per litre.

It may be noted that there are hardly any districts left in India where petrol price is below Rs 90 per litre and is an indication of the high fuel prices in the country. There are several districts where petrol price remains above Rs 100 per litre.

Diesel, the more essential of the two auto fuels, has also seen a sharp jump after the latest round of fuel price hike. In most districts, diesel is retailing over Rs 85 per litre and it has even crossed Rs 90 in some key cities like Mumbai.

Experts are worried about the sharp rise in fuel prices as it could trigger another round of high inflation. Since the price of fuel indirectly impacts many commodity prices, it could make result in higher rates for goods and services.

While demand for fuel remains low during the pandemic, the fact that Indians are spending more on fuel is likely to impact demand for non-essential goods as well. This could ultimately impact India’s economic recovery momentum.

The latest round of fuel price hike has been flagged as worrisome by many experts, considering that both petrol and diesel rates have been hiked by over Rs 3 per litre in less than a month.

Many analysts have said that a good strategy at the moment to prevent slow economic recovery could be to lower the high rate of taxes levied on petrol and diesel. It is worth mentioning that taxes collected on the retail price of fuel in India are one of the highest in the world.