After 16 days of consecutive price hikes, country's top refiner and fuel retailer, Indian Oil Corp cut fuel prices across India. State-owned oil companies announced reduction in petrol price by 60 paise to Rs 77.83 a litre and diesel by 56 paise to Rs 68.75 a litre in Delhi. While just within hours of the announcement, they revised the price cut to just 1 paisa a litre each, where these fuel prices vary from state to state due to local taxes. In Delhi, now petrol has been priced at Rs 78.42 per litre and diesel Rs 69.30.
A senior official of Indian Oil Corp (IOC), said, "The reduction was supposed to be 1 paisa but due to a clerical error the price prevalent on May 25 was communicated as today's price." Prices vary from state to state depending on local sales tax or VAT and Delhi has the cheapest price among all metros Cities and most state capitals.
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On Friday, domestic petrol and diesel prices touched a record high, where the companies have hiked the prices of petrol and diesel by Rs 3.80 and Rs 3.38 a litre, respectively in the last 16 days and after freezing the price for about 19 days ahead of Karnataka elections. Petrol and diesel are being sold at record prices in the country, prompting demand for duty cuts to cushion motorists, which has been resisted by the government and about that the Centre has said it was seeking a long-term solution to the price issue.
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In a move towards finding a long-term solution, oil ministry headed by Dharmendra Pradhan gave an in-principle nod to the Indian Commodity Exchange (ICEX) to launch futures on petrol and diesel, yesterday.
In global markets, oil prices fell to about $75 a barrel as Saudi Arabia and Russia said they were ready to ease supply curbs that have pushed crude prices to their highest since 2014. Petrol and diesel prices in India are linked to Singapore gasoline prices GL95-SIN and Arab Gulf diesel prices GO-AG, which mostly track movements in crude oil prices LCOc1.
