Petrol, diesel prices continue to soar amid COVID crisis

New Delhi: Prices of petrol and diesel continue to soar across major cities with the state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) increasing the pump rate of both the auto fuel for the second consecutive day, IANS reported.

Accordingly, the retail prices of petrol and diesel increased by 28 paise and 27 paise per litre to Rs 95.31 and Rs 86.22 per litre respectively in Delhi on Monday.

The day by day increase of the fuel prices, breaching Rs 100 per litre for petrol has been a worrying factor for the public that protest against which often has been gloomed over the COVID crisis in the country.

In the city of Mumbai, where petrol prices crossed the Rs 100 mark for the first time ever on May 29, the fuel price reached a new high of Rs 101.53 per litre on Monday. Diesel price also increased in the city to reach Rs 93.57 a litre, the highest among metros.

Across the country as well petrol and diesel prices increased between 24-28 paise per litre on Monday but its retail prices varied depending on the level of local taxes in different states.

Mumbai is not the only city to have the unique distinction of petrol breaching the Rs 100 per litre mark. Thane reached the mark a few days back while few other cities in Rajasthan (including Jaipur) Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, having the highest VAT levels on auto fuels in the country, have already been selling normal petrol for over Rs 100 a litre for the past several days.

Ganganagar in Rajasthan has the highest level of petrol prices at Rs 106.29 a litre while diesel price there as well is closing on the century mark remaining at Rs 99.23 a litre. While Rajasthan, in general, has high retail prices of fuels due to high VAT rates, Sri Ganganagar, a small city in the state near the India-Pakistan border, has the most expensive auto fuel in the country due to higher freight it had pay to get fuel at stations.

Premium petrol price has already crossed the Rs 100 per litre mark in several parts of the country through the increase in the retail rates in the month of January and February.

With Monday's price hike, fuel prices have now increased on 20 days and remained unchanged on 18 days since May 1. The 20 increases have taken up petrol prices by Rs 4.91 per litre in Delhi. Similarly, diesel has increased by Rs 5.50 per litre in the national capital.