After facing disappointment from the Union Budget ‘2013-14’, there comes no end to suffering of common-man, effecting another major hike in a fortnight, petrol price have been raised by Rs 1.40 per litre from March 1 midnight. Petrol will now cost Rs 70.74 in Delhi as against Rs 69.06 earlier, Rs 78.34 per litre in Kolkata, Rs 77.66 in Mumbai and Rs 73.95 in Chennai. The price in Bangalore will go up by Rs 1.84 to Rs 77.88. The prices might vary a bit in the rest of the State.
The price increase has been necessitated by two factors. Firstly, the international gasoline (petrol) prices, which has increased from $128.57 per barrel to $131 a barrel since the last revision and secondly the rupee that has depreciated from Rs 53.43 to Rs 54.15 against the dollar. Petrol prices were last increased by Rs 1.50 per litre on February 16.
Apart from losses on sale of petrol, oil firms are suffering under-recovery (revenue loss) on sale of diesel of Rs 11.26 per litre, kerosene of Rs 33.43 a litre and LPG of Rs 439 per cylinder. On account of this, oil marketing companies (OMC’s) will be closely monitoring the trends of international oil prices and Rupee-USD exchange rate and the same shall be reflected in future price changes.
