New Delhi, May 25 (IANS) As the Middle East crisis continues to impact retail fuel prices, India had one of the smaller percentage increases, and sits on one of the lower absolute price levels among non-subsidising economies.

Through the 78 days from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz on February 28, to the oil marketing companies’ (OMCs) revisions of May 15, 19, 23, and May 25, India held petrol and diesel prices essentially unchanged, while the rest of the world raised prices by 10, 20, 50, and, in some cases, 90 per cent.

The cumulative Indian revision at just over Rs 7 a litre takes the headline movement on the retail price to roughly seven and a half per cent — equivalent to Rs 7.35 per litre on petrol and Rs 7.53 per litre on diesel — taking petrol prices in Delhi from Rs 94.77 to Rs 102.12 and diesel from Rs 87.67 to Rs 95.20.

Every major developed economy now retails petrol above Rs 150 a litre and most above Rs 180; the EU 27 weighted average sits at Rs 179 on petrol and Rs 184 on diesel.

India’s two large neighbours — Pakistan and Nepal — have moved well past Rs 135 a litre on petrol despite lower nominal incomes. Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and the Philippines have crossed Rs 130 a litre.

The only economies retailing petrol consistently below the Indian range are direct subsidisers (the UAE and Malaysia) or the US, which has structurally low fuel taxation.

India, therefore, prices petrol and diesel at or below most of the developing world and at roughly half the European pump, while still raising less than any non-subsidising peer through the present disruption.

Every other major importing economy has passed on the cost to its consumers and in several cases, doubling pump prices over 48 months. India has not.

The Indian revision of just over Rs 7 a litre, equivalent to roughly seven and a half per cent off the Delhi base, is the smallest material upward movement of any major economy outside the directly subsidising Gulf producers — smaller than Japan, smaller than every European economy, smaller even than the South Asian peers that lack India’s buffers.

—IANS

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