New Delhi: Petrol price touched Rs 104.01 and diesel Rs 95.90 per litre in Goa on Monday after state-owned oil companies effected the fourth hike in retail fuel rates in the last 11 days, raising prices by Rs 8 to cut losses from selling auto fuels below market cost.Govt said cumulative under-recoveries on petrol, diesel and LPG were now just below Rs 600 crore a day, indicating more hikes may be on the cards.After the first Rs 3 per litre hike on May 15 amid the current geopolitical situation that disrupted energy supplies and triggered a global surge in crude prices, govt had said under-recoveries had declined 25% to Rs 750 crore a day.In Mumbai, FM Nirmala Sitharaman defended the hike, saying it was a market-driven revision in response to soaring global crude prices. She said govt had shielded consumers for 75 days or so by over Rs 1 lakh crore annually by slashing excise by Rs 10 a litre.A litre of petrol in Delhi now costs Rs 102.12, while diesel is Rs 95.20 per litre. In Chennai, petrol costs Rs 107.77 per litre and diesel Rs 99.55, while in Kolkata, petrol costs Rs 113.51 per litre and diesel Rs 99.82. The quantum of the hike varies because value-added tax structures differ across states.Sujata Sharma, joint secretary in the ministry of petroleum, said rising global crude prices had affected all countries, but the impact on India was lower because losses were being absorbed by govt and oil companies.“Globally, the increase in petrol prices is 22% and in diesel 27%. But in India it is much lower — 7.7% on petrol and 8.6% on diesel. Before the increase in fuel prices, govt took all possible measures. It reduced excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 10, and the impact on the exchequer is Rs 14,000 crore a year,” Sharma said, adding that excise duty on petrol and diesel has been reduced by Rs 21 on petrol and Rs 24 on diesel since 2021.“Despite these steps, OMCs were losing Rs 1,000 crore a day, which has come down to under Rs 600 crore after the hikes,” she said.Justifying the hikes, Sharma said the profit earned by the three state-run OMCs in the last financial year would be wiped out by losses incurred in just one quarter of the current fiscal. She said the OMCs needed funds for capital expenditure to raise refining capacity to 300 million tonnes per annum over the next 3-4 years. Taxes paid by these companies to govt were used for building schools, hospitals and roads, and for various welfare programmes, she added.Corporate ratings agency ICRA said that despite the latest increase, under-recoveries remained high because of mounting losses on domestic LPG sales and the elevated premium over the crude benchmark.
