Government limits petrol-diesel price hikes to 3.5% to shield citizens from a potential 200-300% increase due to global oil shocks.

The hike comes amid soaring global energy costs, with government citing mounting under-recoveries and fiscal pressure on state-run oil firms

OMCs' production costs have "gone through the roof in the past month", Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said last month after the governemnt cut central excise taxes to ease…