The government, on Tuesday night, hiked the prices of petrol and diesel by Rs 2 and Rs 1 per litre, respectively.

Cooking gas prices too were increased by Rs 20 a cylinder. However, kerosene prices were not hiked at all.

The government also slashed excise duty on petrol by 4 per cent to 26 per cent, diesel from 14 per cent to 11 per cent and on LPG from 16 to 8 per cent in a bid to reduce the impact on consumers of petro products.

PETROL
City	New Price	Old Price	Increase
	(Per litre)	(Per litre)	(Per litre)
Delhi	Rs 35.71	Rs 33.71	Rs 2.00
Mumbai	Rs 40.96	Rs 38.83	Rs 2.13
Kolkata	Rs 38.69	Rs 36.61	Rs 2.08
Chennai	Rs 38.96	Rs 36.79	Rs 2.17
DIESEL
City	New Price	Old Price	Increase
	(Per litre)	(Per litre)	(Per litre)
Delhi	Rs 22.74	Rs 21.73	Rs 1.00
Mumbai	Rs 28.62	Rs 27.43	Rs 1.19
Kolkata	Rs 25.03	Rs 23.99	Rs 1.04
Chennai	Rs 25.35	Rs 24.23	Rs 1.12

Announcing the decision, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said the increase, effective from Tuesday midnight, was necessitated due to spurt in international oil prices, which put a whopping additional burden of Rs 18,000 crore (Rs 180 billion) a year.

Accordingly petrol would now cost in Delhi at Rs 35.70 a litre and diesel at Rs 22.73 against Rs 33.70 and Rs 21.73, respectively.

Cooking gas cylinder would cost Rs 261, up from the prevailing price of Rs 241.

Aiyar said the Rs 2 hike in petrol price was much lower than market indicated price hike of Rs 3.67 to Rs 4.91 a litre, while in the case of diesel the Re 1 increase was against Rs 1.67 to Rs 2.35 per litre.

In the case of LPG the market indicated price increase was Rs 133 a cylinder, but the actual hike was just Rs 20.

Kerosene, the poor men's cooking fuel, was spared the hike although the market indicated hike was Rs 4.43 a litre.

Aiyar said that though there has been some softening of global oil prices since first week of June and was expected to continue for some more months, the additional burden to the oil companies to the tune of Rs 18,000 crore had to be shared by all the stake holders--oil companies, government and the consumers.

He said oil companies had agreed to absorb most of the impact and only a minimum burden was passed on to the consumers.

Criticising the previous government for keeping the prices of kerosene and LPG frozen despite 'proclaimed' dismantling of Administered Pricing Mechanism in July 2002, Aiyar said auto fuel prices were also not increased since January this year.