Petrol and diesel prices in the country have not been revised for fourteenth consecutive days. This decision to freeze the prices of fuel comes at a time when the crude oil prices globally have been more or less volatile.
It needs to be noted that the central government has received a lot of flak over the rising fuel prices over the last few weeks. With five states namely Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry going for polls, this no change policy in fuel prices by oil marketing companies will be a big relief to the government.
On Saturday, petrol and diesel prices in Delhi remained at Rs 91.17 and Rs 81.47 per litre, respectively. In the financial city, petrol and diesel was sold at Rs 97.57 and Rs 88.60 per litre, respectively.
In Chennai, petrol is priced at Rs 93.11 per litre while the price of diesel is Rs 86.45 per litre. The price of petrol in Kolkata is Rs 91.35 per litre while diesel is sold at Rs 84.35 per litre.
Since the beginning of February crude has gained more than $7 per barrel that pushed oil marketing companies to increase fuel prices on 14 occasions raising the prices by Rs 4.22 per litre for petrol and by Rs 4.34 a litre for diesel in Delhi.
The time the fuel prices in India were unchanged the global benchmark Brent touched $70 per barrel mark for the first time in more than a year. However, at 7.46 am IST, WTI was trading down at $-0.41 per barrel at $65.61. Brent crude was trading at $ 69.22. This rise in global prices is driven by the decision of OPEC countries to not ramp up production in April.
