CONG SLAMS GOVT FOR HIKING PETROL, DIESEL PRICES

The Congress on Saturday came down heavily on the government for hiking the prices of petrol and diesel for the seventh consecutive day and questioned why the crash in international crude oil prices was not being passed on to consumers here.

The price of petrol was raised by 59 paise per litre and diesel by 58 paise per litre on Saturday, as oil companies adjusted retail rates in line with costs for the seventh straight day, after an 82day hiatus in rate revision during the lockdown.

“International crude oil prices are at present the lowest in the last 15 years, yet petrol and diesel prices are skyrocketing while the common people to continue to suffer under the Modi regime. Central excise duty on petrol has been increased by 258 per cent and on diesel by 819 per cent since the Modi government came to power in May, 2014,” senior lawyer and Congress Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal told the media.

“The Modi government had between November 2014 and January 2016 raised excise duty on petrol and diesel on 9 occasions to take away gains arising from plummeting global oil prices. In all, duty on petrol was hiked by `11.77 per litre and that on diesel by `13.47 a litre in those 15 months that helped it mop up `2,42,000 crore in 2016-17 from `99,000 crore in 2014-15”.

According to analysts, the gain for the Union government in the remaining 11 months of the current fiscal year (April

2020 to March 2021) will be close to `1.6 lakh crore, he claimed adding that the central excise and VAT cumulatively account for 69 per cent of tax on fuel in India which is higher than anywhere else in the world.