CM’S office tweets a VAT cut that wasn’t
DEHRADUN: The social media wing of Uttarakhand CM Trivendra Singh Rawat got an egg on its face on Wednesday after Rawat’s official twitter handle tweeted that government has reduced 2% VAT and 2% cess on the petrol and diesel in a bid to give the relief to the public. Minutes later finance minister Prakash Pant denied such move and claimed the VAT and cess was reduced sometime back therefore there was no question to cut further.
This led to confusion among the government machinery for hours while social media had a field day cracking jokes and questioning if there was lack of coordination among functionaries.
“Following the Centre’s step, our government has decided to cut 2% VAT and cess on petrol and diesel. This will give relief to the public (sic)” CM’S official handle tweeted in Hindi which was later deleted. But many had saved the screen shot by then thus forcing CM office to urge some journalists to delete the same. Darshan Rawat coordinator for the CMO said “the tweet was made accidentally”.
When contacted, finance minister Prakash Pant said there was confusion regarding the decision.
“We had already reduced 2% VAT and 1.5% cess on petrol and diesel sometime back. There is no question of cutting it further” finance minister told HT after coming out of a cabinet meeting. He added “government will compare the rates of diesel and petrol with the neighbouring states and if required the cut (on VAT and cess) will be discussed accordingly”. Sources in the government said following the footsteps of the BJP governments in Gujarat and Maharastra, the Uttarakhand government was also in hurry to cut VAT. However on the sidelines of the cabinet meet, officials shared that state will lose major chunk of the revenue if it cut down the VAT.
Gujarat government on Tuesday slashed 4% VAT while Maharastra reduced ₹2 on petrol and ₹1 on diesel.