With daily pricing mechanism resuming, motorists have had to shell out an additional ₹1.50 for fuel in the last three days.

Oil companies resumed daily pricing of fuel since Sunday and were hiking prices by around 50 paise each day. Since the State government increased VAT on May 4, consumers were paying an additional ₹3.25 on petrol and ₹2.50 on diesel. In effect, petrol vehicle users pay ₹5 extra and diesel users ₹4 than what they were paying since March 16 when daily pricing was stopped.

And industry sources explain that the daily hikes were likely to go up by at least ₹5 per litre, which would be a further burden on consumers.

The effect of an increase in diesel prices was already felt in the retail sector and by consumers who saw a steep hike in prices of goods. Arunkumar Paramasivam, who manages an organics-only outlet, said he had been spending an additional ₹3,000 just on transportation every week to bring fruits and vegetables. “We used to get goods by bus earlier but now we do not have public transport to depend on so we are forced to depend on trucks, which are making the goods costlier,” he said.

Mylapore resident Ganesh Ramakrishnan said the middle and lower classes would be badly affected by this hike. “I can already feel the pinch. Many have had to take pay cuts or even lose jobs. In such a scenario when fuel prices go up, it will make things extremely difficult. Those in the delivery business would have to bear the additional burden or those companies would pass it onto consumers,” he added.