Hyderabad: Union oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday said the Centre has collected Rs 3.01 lakh crore as excise duty on petroleum products such as petrol, diesel, jet fuel, LPG among others in the last nine months.
Compared to this, the government had collected Rs 1.97 lakh crore in excise duty on petroleum products in 2019-20, Rs 2.35 lakh crore in 2018-19, Rs 2.41 lakh crore in 2017-18, Rs 2.37 lakh crores in 2016-17.
The data was provided by the minister in the Lok Sabha in a written reply to unstarred questions of members of parliament Balubhau, Nama Nageswara Rao, Asaduddin Owaisi and others.
The information provided by the government reveals that the government has been collecting an average of Rs 33,000 crore a month as excise duty in the current financial year. The amount collected in the last nine months in 2020-21 is about Rs 1 lakh crore more than the tax collected in April 2019-20.
Pradhan said that the retail selling price of domestic gas was Rs 410.5 per 14.2-kg cylinder on March 1, 2014. This month, the same cylinder costs Rs 819, which is double the price it was available for in 2014.
Similarly, kerosene sold to the poor through the public distribution system (PDS) has risen from Rs 14.96 per litre in March 2014 to Rs 35.35 this month, the minister said.
Giving the oil’s import cost, the minister said India paid $47.56 per barrel in 2016-17, $56.43 in 2017-18, $69.88 in 2018-19, $60.47 in 2019-20 and $42.78 in 2020-21 (till February 28, 2021). This averages to $55.42/barrel a year — one of the lowest in recent times.
The average yearly price of petrol in New Delhi, the minister said, was Rs 64.61 in 2016-17, Rs 69.20 in 2017-18, Rs 75.37 in 2018-19, Rs 72.69 in 2019-20 and Rs 79.82 in 2020-21 (till February 28, 2021). The average retail price of petrol over the last five years was Rs 72.34 a litre, which is the highest ever average for petrol.
The minister said the Centre currently levies Rs 32.90 per litre excise duty on petrol and Rs 31.80 a litre on diesel. In 2018, the government levied the excise duty of Rs 17.98 a litre of petrol and Rs 13.83 on a litre of diesel.
If it is worked out, the government has nearly doubled the tax on petrol and more than doubled the tax on diesel in the last two years.
