The fuel prices have been witnessing a steep rise since the past few weeks but were unchanged on Wednesday
States like Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal this week cut taxes on fuel to reduce the burden, but the central government has so far not done so.
When a slew of questions on fuel price hike by the government was raised at a Cabinet briefing earlier this week, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad chided reporters, telling them to ask "better" questions when the economy was "booming"."The Indian economy is booming, and you do not have any questions on that," he asked. "You seem to be concerned only with fuel price hike." The economy grew at 7.9 per cent in the March quarter of 2015-16 and the government achieved the fiscal deficit target of 3.9 per cent of gross domestic product in FY16, although private investment remained sluggish and doubts loom over the quality of data.
The phased increase of prices is being done to sell the fuel at international prices
State refiners currently revise fuel prices every fortnight
State-owned OMCs dumped the 15-year old practice of revising rates on 1st and 16th of every month
The comments come amid criticism by opposition parties
The petitioner wanted the present mechanism of daily fixation of fuel prices to be held unconstitutional
The disparity between movements in the Indian crude oil basket and retail petrol and diesel prices explained in charts
Cooking gas price was hiked by Rs 1.50 a cylinder in line with the govt's decision to raise rates every month to eliminate subsidies by March
With excise tax, ATF in India is one of the costliest in the world
Petrol and diesel prices have been witnessing a steep rise since the past few weeks
Northern states also agreed to bring uniformity in taxes on liquor and registration of vehicles and transport permit
In the national capital, petrol was sold at Rs 75.71 per litre, up from Rs 75.55 on Wednesday
Excise duty and additional taxes are estimated to fetch the government about Rs 2.5 trillion in the year ending March 2019
The sudden hike in prices of diesel and petrol, along with a rise in crude oil prices, was due to the ongoing supply cut of oil by the OPEC
The BJP-led government had raised excise duty nine times between November 2014 and January 2016 to shore up finances as global oil prices fell
Under all round-attack on rising fuel prices, the government on Tuesday decided to slash the excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 2 per litre
It also said that though the govt needs resources for building infrastructure and welfare schemes, over-dependence on petrol, diesel by the centre and states would hamper economic growth
Petrol price of Rs 32.19 a litre in Malaysia was less than half what prevailed in India last Friday