After the last phase of the general elections, Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) increased the prices of petrol and diesel across the nation on Monday.
This move could potentially mark the advent of a rising trend in fuel prices as they are again aligned to the increasing global oil prices.
It has been learnt that petrol prices hiked 8-10 paise while diesel price increased 15-16 paise across major cities on Monday, as per the data from Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL).
As far as Mumbai is concerned, the price of petrol was hiked to ₹76.73 per litre from ₹76.64 per litre on May 19, while in the national capital, the price of petrol has been increased to ₹71.12 from ₹71.03. Likewise, a litre of diesel now costs ₹69.27 per litre in Mumbai, while in Delhi, it costs only ₹66.11 per litre.
In Kolkata and Chennai, petrol rates increased to ₹73.19 and ₹73.82 per litre while diesel prices remained at ₹67.86 and ₹69.88 per litre respectively.
The rise in fuel prices is associated with the rise in crude oil prices in the international market. “There has been no official direction to keep fuel prices unchanged, and in fact, the fuel prices have been changed during the election period,” an official in state-owned HPCL told The Hindu.
Fuel prices in the country usually get used to change in crude oil prices with a time delay of 15 days to a month, so the prices during the election period (April 11 to May 19) should reply to the oil prices in the proportionate period prior to that.
While crude oil prices in the Indian basket jumped to 9.8% in the March 11 to April 17 period to $72.9 per barrel, the price of petrol in Delhi decreased 2.36% from April 11 to May 19, citing an artificial disconnect between the two.