New Delhi: State-owned oil firms may hike petrol price by about Rs 0.50 per litre from June 16 as last month's steep increase in rates is not enough to cover the cost of raw material (crude oil).
"If there are no (political) pressure, we would like to hike petrol price from midnight of June 15 and 16," a top official of Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the nation's largest fuel retailer, said here.
IOC and its sister PSUs had on May 15 raised petrol price by Rs 5 per litre, the biggest hike ever.
"Even after that hike, we were losing Rs 4.58 per litre. After including VAT, the desired increase at retail level in Delhi came to Rs 5.50 a litre," he said.
The desired hike in price has been calculated based on the average crude oil price of the first fortnight of May.
However, from June 1, which takes into account the average of second half of May when international rates moderated, IOC is losing Rs 1.15 per litre. After including VAT, the desired hike in Delhi would be Rs 1.35 a litre.
"We will have to take a view (on hiking petrol price) next week," he said. "The government is not compensating us for selling petrol at below international cost since June 2010 when its pricing was freed."
Though the government had freed petrol pricing from its control, state-owned retailers have been informally being guided by 'advice' from the oil ministry. They did not hike rates in the run-up to the assembly elections in five states,
including West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
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