Petrol, diesel prices hiked for the 3rd day in a row

New Delhi: Petrol and diesel prices were hiked for the third consecutive day today after a two-day pause across the country Friday. The latest increase that follows the unrelenting hike in international oil prices has pushed pump rates across the country to their highest-ever levels.

Petrol and diesel prices were again hiked by 35 paise per litre each, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers.

Petrol now costs  ₹108.64 a litre in Delhi and  ₹114.47 in Mumbai. Diesel is now priced at  ₹97.37 a litre in Delhi and  ₹105.49 in Mumbai.

As for Kolkata and Chennai, petrol and diesel cost  ₹109.12 and  ₹100.49 respectively in Kolkata and  ₹105.43 and  ₹101.59 respectively in Chennai.

In Bengaluru, petrol is available at  ₹112.43 per litre and diesel at  ₹103.35 and in Hyderabad, one litre of petrol is now available at  ₹113.00 and diesel cost  ₹106.22 for one litre of diesel.

The costliest fuel was in the border town of Ganganagar in Rajasthan, where petrol comes for  ₹120.89 a litre and diesel for  ₹111.77 per litre.

Petrol and diesel prices differ from state to state depending on the incidence of value-added tax.

While petrol has already hit the ₹100-a-litre mark or more in all major cities of the country, diesel has touched that level in over one-and-a-half dozen states and UTs from Jammu & Kashmir to Tamil Nadu.

The government had raised excise duty on petrol and diesel to mop up gains that would have otherwise accrued to consumers from international oil prices crashing to as low as USD 19 per barrel. While international prices have since recovered to USD 85, excise duty has remained at ₹32.9 per litre on petrol and ₹31.8 on diesel.

Meanwhile, the Central government is in talks with several oil-exporting countries on the issue of supply and demand of oils but there is no possibility of immediate relief in prices.