New Delhi, September 15
State-run oil companies today announced upto 50 paise per litre increase in the retail selling price of petrol and diesel, effective from midnight tonight.
While petrol prices were hiked by upto 50 paise per litre, diesel prices would go up in the range of 34 to 40 paise per litre.
Petrol would cost Rs 29.66 a litre in Delhi as against the prevailing rate of Rs 29.20 per litre, while diesel prices would increase to Rs 18.68 per litre from Rs 18.34, a spokesperson of the Indian Oil Corporation said here.
In Kolkata, petrol prices were hiked by 46 paise to Rs 31.10 per litre while in Mumbai petrol prices would go up from Rs 33.65 per litre to Rs 34.15 a litre.
Chennai would see a hike of 50 paise in petrol selling price to Rs 32.16 a litre. Diesel prices in Kolkata were increased by 34 paise per litre to Rs 20.06 a litre, by 40 paise in Mumbai to Rs 23.69 a litre and by 37 paise in Chennai to Rs 20.55 per litre.
In accordance with the mechanism evolved by oil companies to review prices of petroleum products every fortnight after dismantling of the Administered Pricing Mechanism (APM), officials of the Indian Oil Corporation, the IBP, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum met yesterday to match retail price of motor spirit and high-speed diesel with import parity price.
In view of the firm trend witnessed in the international oil market, the oil companies sought Petroleum Minister Ram Naik’s approval for a price hike.
Though domestic petrol prices were upto Re 1 per litre short of import parity price, Mr Naik asked oil companies to stagger the increase over a month.
In case of diesel, the current domestic prices were 67 paise short of import parity, they said.
Officials said refinery gate price have been increased by 50 to 60 paise per litre, based on the average international price of the first half of this month.
PTI
