Petrol price hiked by 58 paise a litre, diesel to be cheaper by 31 paise

State-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) on Thursday announced a 58 paise per litre hike in the selling retail prices of petrol, the second consecutive increase in rates.

However, the OMCs decided to slash diesel price by 31 paise per litre.

The increase is excluding state levies and prices may vary from state to state, depending on local taxes, Indian Oil Corporation stated in a release.

Petrol will cost Rs64.05 a litre in Delhi from midnight of Thursday/Friday against Rs63.47 earlier. Similarly, diesel will cost Rs52.63 a litre, a tad lower compared to Rs52.94 a litre.

Similarly, a litre of non-branded petrol will cost Rs69.13 in Mumbai, Rs67.42 in Kolkata and Rs63.76 in Chennai.

A litre of non-branded diesel will cost Rs58.10 in Mumbai, Rs54.89 in Kolkata and Rs54.06 in Chennai.

Petrol and diesel prices were last hiked by Rs3.38 per litre and Rs2.67 per litre, respectively, on 1 September.

Indian Oil Corporation and the other two state-owned fuel retailers, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) revise petrol and diesel price on 1 and 16th of every month based on international oil rate and foreign exchange ratio in the preceding fortnight.

''The current level of international product prices of petrol and diesel and rupee-dollar exchange rate warrant increase in selling price of petrol and decrease in selling prices of diesel, the impact of which is being passed on to the consumers with this price revision, '' IOC said..

''The movement of prices in the international oil market and INR-USD exchange rate shall continue to be monitored closely and developing trends of the market will be reflected in future price changes,'' it added.