Congress accuses new Government of not pursuing anything new on hiking fuel price

Congress leader Meem Afzal on Sunday stated that under the new BJP-led NDA Government there was no different approach taken on increasing fuel price.

Commenting on the Union Government increasing diesel prices by 50 paise Afzal said, "We were thinking that after the new government formation there was hope that the prices of commodities and diesel would come down. There was hope that the dollar would go down to 40 dollar level."

"Now that the fuel price has been increased by 50 paise shows that nothing has gone down; infact it is going up even with a change of government," Afzal added.

The BJP-led NDA Government on Saturday announced a diesel price hike by 50 paise effective from midnight gave enough indications that it will pursue with the reforms initiated by the earlier Congress-led UPA regime. In January 2013 the UPA had decided to raise diesel prices in small doses of upto 50 paise every month till such time that the subsidy on nation's most consumed fuel is eliminated.

According to reports the hikes, are excluding state sales tax or VAT and actual increase will be higher and will vary from city to city, the oil companies announced. Diesel price in Delhi will be hiked by 57 paise after including taxes, to Rs 57.28 per litre, while it will cost Rs 65.84 a litre in Mumbai as against Rs 65.21 at present. In Kolkata, the new rate will be 61 rupees 97 paise a litre and in Chennai, it will be 61 rupees 21 paise a litre. Price of diesel were last hiked on May 13 when rates went up by Rs 1.09 a lite, excluding local levies.