hi.

its upon u what u want. if u have more running & need to cut running costs than the diesel is good but if u drive hardly than the diesel is of no use because diesel cars are expensive than their petrol versions.

Deisel engines are used more in the case of vehicles which require more torque...... so "heavier" is the work we can use....  its true that Crdi is the latest diesel technology and its now a very poplular technology in the market.

However going for Petrol or Diesel would still be a personal choice on the basis of ..

1.Economy.

2.Maintanance.

3.Resale....

Diesel scores in the 1st point,

while,

Petrol has an edge over Diesel for the 2nd and the 3rd point. 

Actually the diesel cars are popular only in the Indian subcontinent mainly India, its not the case in European, American countries. They still prefer the petrol cars. Reason being they want performance oriented cars because they have proper roads or stretch of roads to drive them on and moreover the price of petrol in those countries is not going up as is the case in India. Abroad, Mercedes have petrol cars with AMG engine for getting maximum performance, In India there is no single Mercedes with AMG, they infact launched the S-class diesel variant, because its in demand here no matter it  cost 80 lakhs. Diesel is more popular here, CRDi is the latest in diesel, take the example of Verna in which the CRDi is a better performer than the petrol but as you said, they are not in the same price range, diesel will always be more expensive. In the end its upto the person which one to buy, but technology wise the companies aren't doing much work on petrol engines as on diesels for India, and they are better performers too. Skoda launched Laura only with diesel engine whereas no one likes to buy the diesel Laura in europe, they have 5 variants of petrol laura there. Its better to go for the Diesel if you know that you will cover up the additional money paid for that considering the technology and performance. 

If you like the diesel very much go for it
diesel likes* more ecnomy,superb pickup,less cost
dislikes*diesel engine will not long last,noisy,more maintaiance cost,not soo smooth,some times causes serious priblems(like Indica V2)

see this web  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRDI