The oil marketing companies (OMCs) kept petrol and diesel prices unchanged for the 17th consecutive day on Sunday.

In Delhi, price of petrol which fell to Rs 103.97 a litre on November 4 from previous day's Rs 110.04 a litre, remains at the same level. The diesel prices also remained unchanged in the capital at Rs 86.67 a litre.

In Mumbai, petrol continues to be priced at Rs 109.98 a litre and diesel Rs 94.14 a litre.

Prices also remained unchanged in Kolkata where the petrol price reduced by Rs 5.82 to Rs 104.67 per litre and that of diesel by Rs 11.77 to Rs 89.79 per litre in the first week of November.

Petrol prices in Chennai also remains at Rs 101.40 per litre and diesel Rs 91.43 per litre.

Before price cuts and pause, diesel prices have increased on 30 out of the last 56 days taking up its retail price by Rs 9.90 per litre in Delhi.

Petrol prices have also risen on 28 of the previous 52 days taking up its pump price by Rs 8.85 per litre.

Since, January 1, petrol and diesel prices have risen by more than Rs 26 a litre before the duty cuts.

The excise duty cut by the Centre on November 3 was first such exercise since the onset of COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the government had revised excise duty on petrol and diesel sharply in March and again in May last year to mobilise additional resources for COVID-19 relief measures.

The excise duty was raised by Rs 13 and Rs 16 per litre on petrol and diesel between March 2020 and May 2020 and was standing high at Rs 31.8 on diesel and Rs 32.9 per litre on petrol before the Centre finally decided on duty cut.

(With inputs from IANS)