Relentless fuel price hikes: Profiteering by oil marketing companies or govt?

Hikes in auto fuel prices for 20 days in a row raised many eyebrows. However, the rate of increases has been in sync with the Indian basket of crude (which gets reflected on OMCs’ cost with a fortnight gap through trade-parity formula of product prices). Of course, had the Centre (and some states) hiked the taxes steeply when crude remained benign, the OMCs could have easily made the same margins as now, with lower prices to consumers.