New Delhi: A marginal reduction of 8 paise per litre was made in the petrol prices today after four days of unchanged prices whereas, there was no change made in the diesel prices on today also. With this reduction after a pause of four days, petrol prices in Delhi were marked to be Rs. 76.35 per litre.
The petrol prices in Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai were marked to be Rs. 84.06, Rs. 78.94 and Rs. 79.16 per litre respectively.
Notably, the fuel prices have not increased from around a fortnight following the all-time high prices of Rs. 78.43 per litre (for Petrol) and Rs. 69.31 per litre (for Diesel) in Delhi on May 29.
Though, in around a fortnight’s time, the prices of petrol have come down by almost Rs. 2 per litre which is half the price which was raised on the backdrop of increasing crude oil prices and weakening rupee against dollar.
It should be noted that since the beginning of this year i.e. January 1, 2018, the petrol prices were increased by Rs. 6.46 per litre and diesel prices were increased by Rs. 8.21 per litre. In Delhi, the petrol prices were Rs. 71.41 per litre whereas the diesel prices were Rs. 56.71 per litre, when the BJP led NDA Government, took charge in 2014.
Due to deregulation of price setting mechanism and the soaring prices almost every day during the last month, the Government had to face severe criticism.
Notably, the excise duty on petrol and diesel was also increased by the government by Rs. 11.77 per litre and Rs. 13.47 per litre in nine instalments between November 2014 – January 2016. The excise duty was raised on the backdrop of supporting finances due to falling down of global oil prices. When the fuel prices were at the record high, there was demand from the industry to cut down the excise duty but it was only cut down in October 2017 by Rs. 2 per litre.
The government of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh were the only governments to reduce VAT after the reduction in excise duty on October 3, 2017. The Kerala government has reduced VAT on fuel prices by Rs. 1 per litre this month.
