Tirupati: Consumers roiled by zooming fuel prices

Tirupati: The fuel prices continue to hit new highs laying an adverse impact on the household budgets with the simultaneous rise of prices of various other essentials. The prices of petrol and diesel were on a rising trend for the past few days and racing towards the century mark. The price of petrol has reached Rs 92.55 per litre on Wednesday in Tirupati whereas the diesel price stands at Rs 85.59.

Though the petroleum prices were steady for almost a month, the companies have started increasing prices since early this month with a rally in global crude oil prices. Though experts were citing various reasons behind the upward hike in global prices, one pertinent reason has been doing rounds that the ongoing Covid vaccination in several parts of globe is also sending positive vibes for economy due to which fuel prices are also moving up.

According to an official of one major oil company who preferred to be anonymous, the monthly consumption of petrol in Chittoor district alone was to the tune of around 1.30 crore litres while the diesel consumption is even higher at 1.96 lakh litres. An increase of 35 paise per litre on petrol will make additional burden of Rs 1.40 lakh on the consumers with an estimated four lakh litres consumption per day and the diesel burden would be even on higher side.

The high excise rates in the country and in the state were adding their might to the rising prices making the common people face the brunt of it. This has laid an adverse impact on the domestic budgets as any hike in fuel prices will invariably impact the prices of other essential commodities.

A housewife Savithri observed that, she used to fill petrol for Rs 100 each time in her scooty with which she can travel upto 3-4 days whereas now she has to fill again in 2-3 days itself. There was nearly a 40 per cent hike on the petrol prices during the last one year. Correspondingly, the prices of groceries and vegetables have inflated while the family incomes have come down post Covid pandemic. With this it became a herculean task to manage the monthly expenditure, she lamented.

For B Nagaraju, who owns an auto rickshaw, it was a tough time as he could not earn to repay his vehicle loan also leaving aside the family requirements. During the Covid times, the diesel price was at Rs 61-62 per litre which has gone up by about Rs 25 now.

"We cannot increase the fares from passengers in the competitive atmosphere. After spending a major chunk of our earnings for the day to diesel, we are finding it difficult to make our both ends meet. The situation of those riding rented auto rickshaws was even more pathetic", he said.