The oil firms had kept the rates unchanged since April 24 till Karnataka went to polls on May 12.
Oil companies raised petrol prices by 17 paise a litre and that of diesel by 21 paise on Monday after a 19-day gap. State-run oil companies said that the price revision was necessary because of increasing international oil rates, PTI reported.
After the revision, a litre of petrol in Delhi will cost Rs 74.80 while diesel will be available for Rs 66.14 a litre. With this, diesel prices are now at a record high while petrol is at a 56-month peak.
The oil firms had kept the rates unchanged since April 24 till Karnataka went to polls on May 12. However, they did not confirm if their decision to not revise the rates was dictated by the government. The companies are estimated to have incurred loss of about Rs 500 crore as they did not revise the prices despite a spike in international rates and fall in rupee against the US dollar.
The Congress was quick to point it out. “There we go again,” tweeted former Union minister P Chidambaram. “More taxes on petrol and diesel, more burden on the consumer. The Karnataka election was only an interval.”
India has the highest retail prices of petrol and diesel among South Asian nations as taxes account for half of the pump rates. The government raised the excise duty on fuel nine times between November 2014 and January 2016 to shore up finances as global oil prices declined, but then cut the tax by Rs 2 a litre in October 2017.
In June 2017, state-owned oil companies such as Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation discontinued a 15-year practice of revising rates every fortnight and switched to daily revisions. Consequently, any rise in global crude prices affects rates in India almost immediately.
