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Petrol Price Hiked By Rs 7.54/ Litre

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[In the steepest ever increase, petrol rates were on Wednesday raised by a massive Rs 7.54 per litre, the first hike in rates in six months. Petrol price in Delhi has been hiked by Rs 7.54 per litre to Rs 73.18 a litre with effect from midnight tonight, state-owned oil companies said in separate but identical press announcements. This is the steepest hike in petrol price ever, the previous high being Rs 5 per litre. Oil firms had twice raised rates by Rs 5 per litre - on May 15, 2011 when prices in Delhi were hiked from Rs 58.37 a litre to Rs 63.37 per litre and on May 24, 2008 when rates were raised to Rs 50.56 a litre. Petrol in Mumbai will cost Rs 78.57 per litre as against Rs 70.66 a litre, at present. In Kolkata, the increase will be Rs 7.85 per litre to Rs 77.88 per litre and Chennai saw rates going up by Rs 7.98 to Rs 77.53 per litre. Reacting to the hike, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said that the petrol price hike is a burden on the common man. She feels that a hike in petrol price hike has taken place due to lack of planning and mismanagement. "I am worried about the country's economy," she said. She also added that no one discussed the price hike with her.  BJP flayed the steep hike of Rs 7.5 per litre in petrol price terming it as "unreasonable" which will make the life of the common man "miserable".  "This whole petrol price hike is clearly unreasonable, arbitrary and is condemned as it will put further inflationary pressure and lead to further rise in prices. Life of the common man will become more difficult and miserable," BJP's chief Spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.  He said the petrol price hike "will have a cascading effect and prices are going to go out of control. It is condemnable."  He alleged the government's inept handling of the economic situation was responsible for this. "The gross mismanagement of food and general economy by the UPA regime has led to the decline of the Rupee," he said, adding it has also led to the rise in prices of petroleum products.  He wondered why the government was unable to check the decline of the Rupee as compared to other currencies of the world while smaller countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Bangladesh and China were not witnessing such a decline of the value of their currencies.  The government had decontrolled petrol price in June 2010 but rates were last increased on November 4 last year. This despite oil price rising by 14.5 per cent and 3.2 per cent fall in value of rupee against the US dollar. On Tuesday, Oil Minister S Jaipal Reddy had stated that the depreciation in rupee had necessitated an immediate increase in fuel prices. But rates of diesel, kerosene and cooking gas have not been revised as a high-power ministerial panel headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and having representatives of key UPA allies like TMC and DMK, hasn't met for almost a year now. Price of diesel, kerosene and cooking gas were last raised in June last year.  (Agencies)