A glance at Petrol & Diesel price around the world

September 6: On Wednesday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, remained non-committal on cutting excise duty to cushion spiralling petrol and diesel prices, which touched an all-time high, saying international oil prices are volatile and have not shown any linear movement. India, he said, is a net buyer of oil and is adversely impacted when rates go up “temporarily”. He termed such movement as “an external factor”.

The Centre currently levies a total of Rs. 19.48 per litre of excise duty on petrol and Rs. 15.33 per litre on diesel. On top of this, states levy Value Added Tax (VAT) – the lowest being in Andaman and Nicobar Islands where a 6 per cent sales tax is charged on both the fuel. Mumbai has the highest VAT of 39.12 per cent on petrol, while Telangana levies the highest VAT of 26 per cent on diesel. Delhi charges a VAT of 27 per cent on petrol and 17.24 per cent on diesel.

Apart from crude oil tags, factors that influence the price of petrol are local taxes and duties, and the cost of living. This causes a wide variation in fuel prices across the world. Even the slightest change in global crude oil costs has a direct impact on fuel prices in India. Petrol and diesel prices are on the boil in India for the past few months, but despite this the price of petrol in India is lower than in several other nations.

Let’s check out what petrol costs per litre in some select countries. All prices (as on September 5) have been converted from the local currency to Indian rupees.