Hyderabad: Petrol prices inching closer to Rs 94 mark

Petrol price in Hyderabad: With the hike in fuel prices across the country for the 11th consecutive day on Friday, the petrol price in Hyderabad has reached nearly Rs 94 per litre. The oil companies hiked the prices of petrol and diesel for the 11th day in a row. In Hyderabad, the hike was 33 paise and 36 paise per litre respectively.

With the latest increase, the price of petrol in the city jumped to Rs 93.78 per litre and diesel to Rs.87.91 per litre. This is the 13th hike in February. The retail petrol and diesel prices in Hyderabad on February 1 were Rs 89.77 and Rs 83.46 per litre respectively. Thus the increase this month so far has been Rs 4.01 in petrol and 4.45 in diesel per litre.

During the last 50 days, the oil companies hiked the fuel prices 23 times. This year the fuel prices have gone up by Rs 7 a litre. The prices have reached all-time high in all states. Among metros, Mumbai now has the highest petrol price at Rs.96.62 per litre while the lowest Rs 90.19 is in Delhi.

The prices vary from state to state due to different taxes structures and also due to transportation charges from the nearest refinery. Oil companies have attributed the hike to the rally in oil prices in international market due to output cut by oil producing nations.

Meanwhile, CPI Tammineni Veerabhadram The State CPI(M) on Friday demanded that the Union government honour its assurance given to the agitating farmers of withdrawing the Electricity Act introduced in Parliament.

The CPI (M) leader pointed out that already big corporate Adani group was controlling power distribution in some Gujarat districts. The Act, he said, would take big consumers under the control of corporates, besides people paying low tariff, and those enjoying free/subsidised supply. Veerabhadram feared this would lead to government power units going bankrupt and corporates earning good profits. "In the absence of subsidised and quality power, people would be compelled to opt for private supply. As a consequence, there would be problems in providing free power to the farm sector, SC, ST colonies, and the poor receiving subsidised supply," he said.