Diesel price hit a new all-time high of Rs 65.46 a litre Petrol price surged to hit a new 55-month high on Saturday as it touched a high of Rs 74.21 a litre in New Delhi, while diesel price hit an all-time high of Rs 65.46 in the national capital.

The state-owned oil firms raised petrol rates by 13 paise per litre each in Delhi while the diesel price surged by 15 paise in each state.

The last time when petrol price surged past this level was in September 2013, when the fuel would make a consumer poorer by Rs 76.06 a litre.

The petrol price, on Saturday, costs Rs 74.21 in Delhi, Rs 76.91 in Kolkata, Rs 82.06 in Mumbai and Rs 76.99 in Chennai, as per the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) website.The petrol and diesel prices tend to fluctuate on a daily basis since the state-owned oil companies that include Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, in June last year had renounced the 15-year practice of revising rates on the fortnightly basis and adopted a daily prices revision system to reflect changes. MetrosNon-Branded Petrol Prices (Rs) On 21/4/2018Rates on 20/4/2018Mar-31Dec-31Delhi74.2174.0773.5569.97Kolkata76.9176.7776.2672.72Mumbai82.0681.9281.4177.87Chennai76.9976.8476.2972.53          MetrosNon-Branded Diesel Prices (Rs) On 21/4/2018Rates on 20/4/2018Mar-31Dec-31Delhi65.4665.2764.459.64Kolkata68.1667.9767.0962.3Mumbai69.769.568.5863.27Chennai69.0668.8667.9362.83The central government has raised excise duty nine times between November 2014 and January 2016 to shore up finances despite the fact that the global oil, to which domestic oil prices are linked, during this period.

In all, duty on petrol rate was hiked by Rs 11.77 per litre and that on diesel by 13.47 a litre in those 15 months that helped government's excise mop up more than double to Rs 242,000 crore in 2016-17 from Rs 99,000 crore in 2014-15.The government had slashed excise duty by Rs 2 per litre in October 2017, when petrol price reached Rs 70.88 per litre in Delhi.

Following this, diesel prices came down to Rs 56.89 per litre and petrol to Rs 68.38 per litre.

However, a global rally in crude prices pushed domestic fuel prices far higher than those levels.