Jayalalithaa slams hike in excise duty on petrol, diesel

Chennai: Condemning the central government for hiking the excise duty on petrol and diesel, the Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa has sought the Central government to withdraw the hike.

In a release on Sunday, Jayalalithaa said that even as the price of global crude was declining, the central government on Saturday had hiked excise duty hike of Rs 1 on petrol and Rs 1.50 on diesel.

This was condemnable, she said. She said that with the latest hike, the third one in January, the central government had increased excise duty by Rs 11.77 on petrol and Rs 13.57 on diesel since November 2014. This was unfair on the central government, which was trying to curb its budgetary deficit in this manner.

Jayalalithaa said reversing the duty hiked over the past 13 months would pave the way to the common people to get fuel at cheaper rates, which will result in economic development. “Hence, I request that the excise duty hike must be withdrawn keeping in mind the long-term interest of overall economic growth and the Centre should shun the narrow approach of decreasing revenue deficit by hiking excise duty,” she said.

Such hikes prevented the benefit of drop in global crude prices reaching the common man. She reiterated her demand for changing the wrong pricing formula adopted by the previous Congress-led UPA government for petroleum products. She noted that while many states increased sales tax on petrol and diesel following such excise duty revision, Tamil Nadu had, not resorted to such a step.

As a result the sales tax on these fuels in Tamil Nadu was lowest among southern states.