Fuel prices unchanged for second straight day. Check rates in your city

After 12 straight days of hike, state-run oil-marketing companies (OMC) had kept prices unchanged on February 21.

State-run oil marketing companies (OMC) on Monday kept fuel prices unchanged for a second straight day amid a nationwide rise in their rates, which has triggered protests in some parts of the country. After 12 consecutive days of fuel price hike, OMCs had first kept the rates steady on February 21.

Petrol, which has crossed the record ₹90 per litre mark in Delhi, stays put at ₹90.58 while the price of an equal quantity of diesel is unchanged at ₹80.97. Mumbai has the highest fuel prices among the four metros, as a litre of petrol and diesel in Maharashtra’s is retailing at ₹97 and ₹88.06 respectively.

Consumers in the southern metropolis of Chennai will have to pay ₹92.59 and 85.98 for a litre of petrol and diesel respectively, followed by Kolkata at ₹91.78 and ₹84.56. Petrol in the IT hubs of Hyderabad and Bengaluru is at ₹94.18 and ₹93.61 per litre, respectively, while a litre of diesel is at ₹88.31 and ₹85.84.

Fuel prices were hiked by 39 and 37 paise per litre respectively in the national capital on February 20, taking a litre of petrol to ₹90.58 and diesel to ₹80.97 for a litre.

OMCs like Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum (HP) and Bharat Petroleum (BP) determine fuel prices daily, as per rates in the international market. The practice of daily price revision came into effect from June 15, 2017. Before that, prices were revised every fortnight.

With fuel prices rising, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Gandhi accused PM Modi’s government of ‘profiteering off people’s misery and suffering.’ In the three-page letter, she pointed out how the crude oil price is nearly half of what it was during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s tenure. “Therefore, your government’s act of raising prices is little less than a brazen act of profiteering,” Gandhi wrote.