SME Times News Bureau | 21 Jan, 2021
Petrol and diesel prices remained unchanged on Thursday
after oil marketing companies decided to continue their pause in price
revision to provide relief to consumers after prices of auto fuels
breached record high levels last week.
Accordingly, petrol
continues to be sold at Rs 85.20 a litre in Delhi while diesel prices
also remained same at Rs 75.38 a litre.
Across the country as well the pump price of petrol and diesel remained unchanged on Thursday.
Petrol
and diesel prices had risen sharply by 25 paise per litre each on
Monday and Tuesday before the OMCs decided to give relief to consumers
from frequent price rise.
The pump price of petrol and diesel has
increased by Rs 1.49 and Rs 1.51 per litre respectively in January so
far with OMCs deciding to break an earlier longer period of pause
increasing the retail prices for the first time this year on January 6.
The price had been raised on five different days since then.
The
last two days of increase in the pump prices in petrol and diesel has
taken its price to record levels across the country in all major metro
cities and other towns. The last time the retail price of auto fuels
were closer to current levels was on October 4, 2018 when crude prices
had shot up up $ 80 a barrel.
The current price rise is largely on account of steep increase in the central taxes of petrol and diesel and firm crude prices.
Petrol
price was very close to breaching the all-time high level of Rs 84 a
litre (reached on October 4, 2018) when it touched Rs 83.71 a litre on
December 7, 2020. But the march had been halted ever since then with no
price revision by the OMCs in the month. The price rise started again
only on January 6.
Oil companies executives said that petrol and
diesel prices may increase further in the coming days as retail prices
may have to be balanced in line with global developments to prevent OMCs
from making losses on sale of auto fuels.
