Petrol price touches Rs 79.22 per liter mark
| Date :07-Jul-2019 |
Business Bureau:
As the Government hiked excise duty and road and infrastructure cess on petrol and diesel by Rs 2 per litre each on Friday, the fuel prices have once again increased. The price of petrol that was at a level of Rs 76.68 per liter in the city on Thursday, went up by Rs 2.54 to Rs 79.22 per liter on Friday. Similarly, diesel price jumped by Rs 2.62 there by pushing its price from Rs 67.98 per liter to Rs 70.60 per liter over the same period. Though the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had hiked excise duty and road and infrastructure cess on petrol and diesel by Rs 2 per litre each, the effective hike in the city was at Rs 2.54 for petrol and Rs 2.62 for diesel.
Taking into account the fact that local sales tax or value-added tax (VAT), which is charged after adding central excise duty on base price, the hike varies in different states and cities. The Finance Minister hiked the duty and cess to raise a fund of Rs 24,000-28,000 crore on an annual basis. While presenting the Union Budget in the Parliament on Friday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the imposition of an additional special excise duty of Re 1 per litre and road and infrastructure cess of Re 1 per litre on both petrol and diesel.
The Finance Minister had also said that crude prices had softened from their highs thus paving way for her to review excise duty and cess on petrol and diesel. It is important to note that petrol prices were hovering in the range of Rs 75 to Rs 77 per liter for the past few days. In the meanwhile Nagpur Truckers Unity has opposed it and demanded the Union Government to roll back the hike. Kuku Marwaha, President of the Nagpur Truckers Unity, said that the hike would lead to inflation. The association called a meeting of its office-bearers here on Saturday wherein the participants discussed the issue in detail.