The Ministry of Finance has hiked excise duty on unbranded petrol by ₹1.60 a litre and unbranded diesel by 40 paise a litre.
The hike has not been passed on to consumers so retail prices will not see a change.
The basic excise duty on unbranded or normal petrol was increased to ₹ 7.06 a litre from ₹ 5.46 a litre, according to a CBEC notification.
The total levy on petrol will be ₹ 19.06 a litre as against present levy of ₹ 17.46. This is after including including additional and special excise duty.
Similarly on unbranded or normal diesel, excise duty has been increased to ₹ 4.66 a litre from ₹ 4.26 a litre. After including special excise duty, total levy on diesel will be ₹ 10.66 a litre as against ₹ 10.26 currently.
The excise duty on branded petrol has also been hiked to ₹ 8.24 a litre from ₹ 6.64 a lire.
On branded diesel, excise duty has been increased to ₹ 7.02 a litre from ₹ 6.62 a litre.
The increase in excise duty on the fuels is likely to yield an additional revenue of about Rs 3,200 crore to the government during the rest of the current fiscal.
The government had collected Rs 99,184 crore in excise collections from the petroleum sector in 2014—15. This was Rs 33,042 crore in the first quarter of current fiscal.
The government had previously in four instalments raised excise duty on petrol and diesel between November 2014 and January 2015 to take away the reduction in retail rates that was warranted from falling international oil prices.
The four excise duty hikes during this period totalled Rs 7.75 per litre on petrol and Rs 6.50 a litre on diesel. It led to about Rs 20,000 crore in additional revenue to the government, helping it meet its fiscal deficit target.