Petrol and diesel prices remained unchanged on February 5 – a notification issued by state-owned fuel retailers showed. There has been no change for over 90 days.
The last rate cut was by Delhi which reduced the local sales tax or value-added tax (VAT) on petrol from 30 to 19.4 percent from December 1 midnight, bringing down the price by around Rs 8 to Rs 95.41 a litre. Diesel price also remains unchanged in the national capital at Rs 86.67 a litre.
On November 3, the Centre had gone for the deepest excise duty cut ever to bring down retail prices from record highs, reducing the duty on petrol by Rs 5 and on diesel by Rs 10. Many states and union territories followed the Centre's lead to give further relief to consumers.
In Mumbai, a November 4 cut reduced the price of petrol to Rs 109.98 a litre, which remains unchanged. Diesel is at Rs 94.14 a litre.
In Kolkata, petrol and diesel prices remained at Rs 104.67 and Rs 89.79. Petrol was at Rs 101.40 and diesel at Rs 91.43 in Chennai.
The states and union territories that had gone for VAT reduction after the excise duty cut by the Centre include Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Sikkim, Mizoram, Daman and Diu, Karnataka and Puducherry.
Others include Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Gujarat, Nagaland, Punjab, Goa, Meghalaya, Odisha, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Andaman and Nicobar, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
States that have so far not lowered VAT include largely opposition ruled states such as Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu. TMC-governed West Bengal, Left-ruled Kerala, TRS-led Telangana and YSR Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh have also not cut VAT.
Congress-ruled Punjab, which is due for election by March, has seen the biggest drop in petrol prices after it slashed VAT the most. The union territory of Ladakh saw the biggest fall in diesel rates.