In Kolkata, petrol and diesel prices remained at Rs 104.67 per litre and Rs 89.79 per litre, respectively. (Representative image)
Petrol and diesel prices remained unchanged for the 79th day in a row on January 23, according to a price notification by state-owned fuel retailers.
This is the second-longest pause in fuel prices since the introduction of daily rate revision in June 2017, after an 82-day gap between March 17 and June 6, 2020.
This comes as the central government cut excise duty on November 4, 2021, to give relief from prices that had touched an all-time high.
The government cut the duty on petrol by Rs 5 per litre and that on diesel by Rs 10 a litre resulting in an equivalent reduction in retail pump rates. Following this, many states and Union Territories cut local sales or value-added tax (VAT) to give further relief to consumers.
In Delhi, petrol costs Rs 95.41 and diesel Rs 86.67 per litre.
In Mumbai, the November 4 decline had brought the price of petrol down to Rs 109.98 and diesel to Rs 94.14 per litre.
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In Kolkata, petrol and diesel prices remained at Rs 104.67 and Rs 89.79 per litre respectively.
Chennai retailed a litre of petrol at Rs 101.40 and diesel at Rs 91.43 per litre.
The states and Union Territories that had gone for VAT reduction after the excise duty cut by the Centre include Ladakh, Karnataka, Puducherry, Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim, Mizoram, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, and Daman and Diu.
Next in line were Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Gujarat, Nagaland, Punjab, Goa, Meghalaya, Odisha, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Andaman and Nicobar, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren has announced a concession of Rs 25 per litre on petrol and diesel prices for two-wheelers owned by the poor in the state from Republic Day. Soren made the announcement on the completion of two years of the JMM-led (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha) coalition government in the state on December 29.
States that have so far not lowered the VAT include those ruled by the Congress and its allies – Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Others are Trinamool Congress-ruled West Bengal, Left-ruled Kerala, TRS-led (Telangana Rashtra Samithi) Telangana and YSR Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh.
Congress-ruled Punjab has seen the biggest reduction in the price of petrol in the country as it cut VAT the most while Ladakh witnessed the largest reduction in diesel rate.
Before the excise duty cut, petrol and diesel prices had touched an all-time high across the country. While petrol had crossed Rs 100 a litre mark in most cities, diesel was above that level in nearly half the country. In Delhi, petrol came at Rs 110.04 a litre and diesel at Rs 98.42.
