Faux pas: Petrol, diesel prices cut by 1 paisa, not 60 paise

Prices vary from state to state depending on local sales tax or VAT

NEW DELHI: Petrol and diesel prices were on Wednesday cut by 1 paisa per litre each, the first reduction after 16 days of relentless price hikes.

But the marginal decline had its share of excitement with stateowned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) first announcing a reduction of 60 paise — the biggest since daily price revision was introduced in mid-june last year, only to retract it within a couple of hours citing a technical error.

The oil companies on Wednesday morning announced a reduction in petrol price by 60 paise to Rs 77.83 a litre and diesel by 56 paise to Rs 68.75 in Delhi. This was rectified to 1 paisa a litre.

“The reduction was supposed to be one paisa, but due to a clerical error the price prevalent on May 25 was communicated as Wednesday’s price,” a senior official of Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the nation’s largest fuel retailer, explained. Oil companies use 15-day rolling average of Singapore gasoline prices and Arab Gulf diesel prices to arrive at daily rates and so the fall in international oil rates seen in the last few days would be factored in for the revisions in the coming days, he said.

The price effected on Wednesday is based on the average international rate from May 15 to May 29. For Thursday’s rate, the average from May 16 to May 30 will be taken. Rates had on Tuesday touched an all-time high of Rs 78.43 per litre for petrol and Rs 69.31 a litre for diesel in Delhi.

Prices vary from state to state depending on local sales tax or VAT. Delhi has the lowest rate among all metros and most state capitals. Later, IOC in a statement said: “There was a technical glitch in posting the selling prices of petrol and diesel. The selling prices of petrol and diesel with effect from May 30, 2018, have been rectified. Today, there is a minor reduction in fuel prices.”

The marginal reduction comes after 16 consecutive price increases since May 14 when fuel retailers ended a 19-day pre-karnataka poll hiatus to pass on a spike in global oil rates. In all, petrol price was increased by Rs 3.8 per litre and diesel by Rs 3.38 in that fortnight.

Last week, the government had stated that it was working on a long-term solution to address the volatility in fuel prices.

The Kerala government has decided that it will reduce the prices of petrol and diesel by Re 1 in the state from Friday, June 1. With this, Kerala becomes the first state to announce a cut in fuel prices.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday slammed the one paisa cut in fuel prices, saying if this was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea of a “prank”, it was “childish and in poor taste”.