Fuel price hike: Sale of petrol, diesel dips by 20%

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) continues its protest against the abnormal hike in prices of cooking gas cylinder, petrol and diesel prices.

On Tuesday morning, MP from Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency Mimi Chakraborty made a sarcastic tweet taking a dig at the BJP-led government at the Centre. Narrating her experience of feeling the pinch when the LPG cylinder was delivered at her doorstep on Tuesday morning, she tweeted: "Today morning LPG came to my door and I collapsed."

"Kya hua tera vada??? Aatmanirbhar kya aaisa benaga india khoon bechke apna," she further maintained in the tweet to attack, without naming, the Centre.

The new price of a LPG cylinder in Kolkata is Rs 845 with four times increase in the price in the past one month. Even before lockdown people had also bought a cylinder at Rs 550 to Rs 600.

The petrol and diesel price on Tuesday was Rs 91.35 per litre and Rs 84.35 per litre respectively. In a unique protest against the abnormal hike in fuel price, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had rode pillion on an electric scooter to Nabanna. She had also demanded immediate roll back of LPG price below Rs 400 that was before the BJP government came to power at the Centre.

The petroleum dealers have claimed that the sale of petrol and diesel has gone down by at least 20 per cent with the increase in fuel price. Prasenjit Sen, Joint Secretary of West Bengal Petroleum Dealers Association, said: "There are around 2,200 petrol pumps in the state including 700 smaller ones those sell less than 1 lakh litre fuel every month. Though the bigger petrol pumps are managing to survive, the situation is becoming very difficult for the smaller ones".