After a Sunday breather, oil companies continue to increase the prices of petrol and diesel on Monday. In the 16th hike this month, the price of petrol and diesel have reached a new high, going up 29 paise per litre for petrol and diesel by 26 paise a litre.
On Saturday, petrol price had breached the Rs-100 mark in Mumbai for the first time in history. In other cities, like Bhopal and Thane, petrol price had gone past the three-figure mark much earlier. After the hike on Monday, the petrol price in Mumbai will now cost ₹100.47 per litre and diesel will be sold at a rate of ₹92.45 for every litre. In Bhopal, the price of a litre of petrol has gone up to ₹102.34, while diesel will cost ₹93.37.
In other metro cities too, petrol price is not too far away from hitting the three-figure mark. In Delhi, petrol will now cost ₹94.23 per litre while diesel will come at ₹85.15 per litre. In Kolkata, the petrol price has been revised to ₹94.25 for a litre and diesel will cost ₹87.74. May has seen one of the steepest hikes in fuel prices this year. Since May 4, prices have been revised upwards almost every alternate day. In the 16 hikes implemented this month, the price of petrol has gone up by ₹3.83 per litre, while diesel price has seen an overall hike of ₹4.42 per litre.
The recent spate of hikes began after a hiatus in price hike since March 24 this year. Oil companies had stopped revising fuel prices just days before five states went to polls. In fact, between March and May, oil companies reduced the price of petrol and diesel twice, though marginally. Once the poll results were announced, the oil companies have been steadily increasing the price of fuel. Since January, fuel prices had shot up to a record level. There were as many as 26 hikes since the beginning of the year that shot up petrol and diesel prices by more than ₹10 per litre so far.
