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The prices of petrol and diesel have fallen today after remaining unchanged for the last 45 days on Sunday, 22 May. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a cut in excise duty on petrol by 8 per litre, and 6 rupees per litre on diesel.
The excise duty cut will translate into a reduction of ₹9.5 a litre on petrol in Delhi and ₹7 a litre in diesel after taking into account its impact on other levies. Petrol price in Delhi from today, when the excise cuts become effective, will cost ₹96.72 a litre as against ₹105.41 a litre currently while diesel will cost ₹89.62 a litre as opposed to ₹96.67 now.
In Mumbai after the reduction of excise duty one litre of petrol will cost ₹111.35 and a litre of diesel ₹97.28. In Chennai, the petrol and diesel prices are at ₹102.65 and ₹94.24 per litre . In Kolkata, the price of petrol is ₹106.03 and diesel is ₹92.76 . In Bengaluru, one litre of petrol will cost ₹101.94 and one litre of diesel will cost ₹87.89. In Gurugram, one litre of petrol will cost ₹97.81 and ₹90.05 for one litre of diesel.
The move came after the government's inflation management was criticised by opposition parties and economists. A rise in price across all items from fuel to vegetables and cooking oil pushed WPI or wholesale price inflation to a record high of 15.08 per cent in April and retail inflation to a near eight-year high of 7.79 per cent.
The excise duty cuts along with ₹5 cut on petrol and ₹10 reduction on diesel effected from November 4, 2021, rolls back the ₹13 per litre and ₹16 per litre increase in taxes on petrol and diesel, respectively, effected between March 2020 and May 2020 to avoid passing on to consumers the sharp fall in international oil prices. The excise duty hikes of 2020 had taken central taxes on petrol to their highest level of ₹32.9 per litre and that on diesel to ₹31.8 a litre. After the latest excise cut, the incidence of central tax on petrol will come down to ₹19.9 a litre and that on diesel to ₹15.8 per litre.
