The Central government on Saturday announced a reduction on central excise duty on Petrol by Rs 8 per litre and on Diesel by Rs 6 per litre. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that this will reduce the price of petrol by Rs 9.5 per litre and of Diesel by Rs 7 per litre. It will have a revenue implication of around Rs 1 lakh crore/year for the government.
"I wish to exhort all state governments, especially the states where the reduction wasn’t done during the last round (November 2021), to also implement a similar cut and give relief to the common man," she said.
The prices of petrol and diesel have remained steady for 40 days, after 14 revisions that led to an increase by Rs 10 a litre each. Fuel prices were last hiked on April 6 by 80 paise a litre each.
As of May 21, petrol in Delhi cost 105.41 a litre and diesel Rs 96.67 a litre. In Mumbai, petrol and diesel prices are at Rs 120.51 and Rs 104.77 per litre, respectively.
Sitharaman also said that the Modi government decided to give a subsidy of Rs 200 per gas cylinder (upto 12 cylinders) to over nine crore beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana.
