Commercial LPG cylinder now costlier by ₹102.50
NEW DELHI: In what could fuel inflation further, the price of a 19-kg commercial LPG cylinder on Sunday was raised by ₹102.50 to ₹2,355.50. Meanwhile, the price of a 5-kg LPG cylinder was revised to ₹655.
The third upward revision in barely three months is set to severely hit the margins of restaurants and small food stalls. Commercial LPG prices were increased by ₹250 per cylinder on April 1 and ₹105 on March 1.
Large restaurants and fastfood chains have passed on high input costs to their customers, but small food trucks and shops have not been able to do so for fear of losing customers. Rising input costs across the board have resulted in a rapid depletion of their earnings.
Meanwhile, the prices of petrol and diesel remained unchanged on Sunday. Fuel prices were last revised upwards by 80 paise a litre each on April 6.
Petrol price in Mumbai costs ₹120.51 per litre and diesel is being retailed at ₹104.77 per litre. Brent, the international oil benchmark, traded at 107.14 a barrel amid continued volatility over the Ukraine war and prolonged Covid induced lockdown in China.
Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked the states to slash value-added tax (VAT) on petrol and diesel. Modi said that the Centre had lowered excise duties on the fuels in November last year and had also requested states to lower their taxes. He further said that Gujarat and Karnataka lost more than ₹4,000 crore and ₹5,000 crore, respectively since November because of the lowering of taxes. Maharashtra, on the other hand, has collected an excess of ₹3,500 crore to ₹5,500 crore during the same period. India’s retail inflation has jumped to a 17-month high of 6.95% in March from 6.07% in February.