If Indian petrol simply tracked global crude — as everyone on the internet insists it should — here's the ride you'd have taken. And here's the far steadier one you actually got.
Crude is only the raw ingredient. Add the oil companies' making-charge, the Centre's excise, the dealer's cut — then the state slaps VAT on the whole pile. That's your pump price.
Each coloured band is a slice of the crude-linked price. Watch the crude band swell through 2022 while the rest holds. The teal line is what you actually paid — the space above it, up to the top of the wave, is your shield.
Two lines, five years at once — no scrolling. The pink line is what the crude price dictated; the teal line is what you actually paid. Click anywhere to read the shield for that day.
From March to May 2026, crude tore higher — a crude-follower would have paid roughly ₹38 more a litre — yet your pump price barely moved. Here's what those three months would have cost you.
Drag to any day in the five years. See the gap — and the full component-by-component split — for yourself.
Days each year the crude-follow price sat above what you actually paid — the days you were shielded — city by city.
No black box — explained two ways. On the right: exactly how we landed on the ₹16 making-charge.