In 7th fuel price hike in 8 days in India, petrol passes ₹100-mark in Delhi

India registered a seventh hike in fuel prices in eight days on Tuesday as the government continues to underline that the Ukraine war is one of the factors behind the spike.

Petrol prices were hiked by 80 paise per litre on Tuesday taking total hike to ₹4.80, PTI reported.

With the fresh hike, petrol and diesel prices in Delhi rose to ₹100.21 per litre and ₹91.47 per litre respectively. In India’s financial capital Mumbai, petrol price stood at ₹115.04 per litre, whereas the per liter cost for diesel rose to ₹99.25 per litre.

In Chennai, one litre of petrol will now cost ₹105.94 and a litre of diesel will cost ₹96. In Kolkata, it’s ₹109.68 per litre for petrol and ₹94.62 per litre for diesel.

The fuel prices were hiked by 30 paise on Monday too.

Prices were stable for over four and a half months, a period during which election campaigns and polling were held in five states – Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur.

Congress leaders have been accusing the BJP-led government of ‘tax-gouging’ and ‘profiteering’ over the fuel price surge. Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala recently told a media briefing that the BJP-led government ‘has earned ₹26 lakh crore in eight years’ by increasing excise duty on petrol and diesel.

A three-phased campaign, ‘Mehngai-mukt Bharat Abhiyaan’, has also been announced by the Congress against price rise under which it will organise rallies and marches across the country between March 31 and April 7.

India is 85 per cent dependent on imports for meeting its oil needs, according to a report by news agency PTI.

Russia’s Ukraine invasion and escalating sanctions have hampered the oil flows across the globe. Brent crude, which hit an all-time high in the previous weeks, hovered around $108.83 per barrel on Tuesday as per marketwatch.com reports.