A day after the Union budget, petrol and diesel prices across India has increased at least by Rs 2.4 and Rs 2.36 a litre, respectively on Saturday.
On Saturday, petrol price shot up by Rs 2.45 per litre and diesel went up by Rs 2.36 a litre in Delhi, while in Mumbai the fuels are retailing at Rs 78.57 and Rs 69.90 per litre, respectively. In Bengaluru, a litre of petrol costs Rs 75.37, while diesel is being sold at Rs 68.88. Petrol prices shot up to Rs 75.76 and diesel to Rs 70.48 in Chennai, while in Kolkata, the fuels are being sold at Rs 75.15 and Rs 68.59, respectively.
The rise in prices are a result of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman hiking excise duty and cess on petrol and diesel in her maiden budget on Friday.
Sitharaman raised excise duty and road and infrastructure cess on the auto fuels by Rs 2 per litre each to raise over Rs 28,000 crore. Post considering local sales tax or value added tax (VAT), which is charged after adding central excise duty on base price, the increase in petrol price would be over Rs 2.5 per litre and that on diesel would be Rs 2.3.
Also, the finance minister has levied Re 1 per tonne customs or import duty on crude oil. India imports more than 220 million tonnes of crude oil; and the new duty will give the government Rs 22 crore additionally. At present, the government does not levy any customs duty on crude oil. Only a Rs 50 per tonne national calamity contingent duty (NCCD) is charged.
"Crude prices have softened from their highs. This gives me a room to review excise duty and cess on petrol and diesel. I propose to increase Special Additional Excise duty and Road and Infrastructure Cess each by Rs two a litre on petrol and diesel," she said in her budget speech.
(With PTI inputs)
