Bhubaneswar: Prices of petrol and diesel continued to rise through the week with the two petroleum products getting dearer by 59 and 58 paise per litre, respectively, Saturday.
The prices have now risen seven days in a row with pump prices of petrol increasing by Rs 3.90 and diesel by Rs 4 per litre since June 7. All through the week, petrol and diesel prices have risen by about 60 paise per litre per day barring Tuesday when the rise was marginally lower at 40 paise per litre.
Global oil prices are at historic lows due to demand concerns. At this juncture when COVID is bleeding the economy and Indians are feeling the heat, the Centre’s ‘corona tax’ is burning a hole in the common person’s pocket.
Highest tax
It started with the Centre increasing ‘road cess’ on petrol and diesel by Rs 8 per litre, followed by excise duty hike of Rs 2 per litre on petrol and Rs 5 per litre on diesel. What did the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) do then? They passed on the burden to the consumers. In seven hikes, petrol price has gone up by Rs 3.9 per litre and diesel by Rs 4.
Now, 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. The tax on fuel in the US is 19 per cent, Japan 47 per cent, Spain 53 per cent, the UK 62 per cent, France 63 per cent and Germany 63 per cent. This is after the steepest ever hike in excise duty by Rs 13 per litre on diesel and Rs 10 per litre on petrol last May 6.
Calculations demonstrate that the Union government is collecting total tax of Rs 32.98 on every litre of petrol and Rs 31.83 on per litre of diesel. On top of it, the Odisha government charges 32 per cent VAT on petrol and 28 per cent on diesel. According to official sources, the state government is getting taxes of around Rs 17 per litre on petrol and Rs 15 per litre on diesel.
Till last year, taxes accounted for 50 per cent of the retail price of the two fuels in the country. Since 2014, duties on petrol and diesel have been increased 12 times. A reduction has occurred only twice. This represents a 248 per cent increase in duty on petrol since April 2014 and a 794 per cent increase in diesel. The increase in VAT during the same period is to the tune of 54 per cent for petrol and over 184 per cent for diesel.
Pleas on deaf ears?
As per a city-based economist, the Union government is playing an easy trick to augment revenue collection which was severely affected due to its own decisions in the name of pandemic. “Playing this trick, the Modi government is expected to gain close to Rs 1.6 lakh crore in additional revenues this fiscal.”
All Odisha Truck Owners’ Association secretary Rabi Satpathy demanded the Centre to roll back the price hike. “When the Centre is beating the drum for ‘one nation-one tax’, it should bring the fuel products under GST.”
Truck owner Ajit Kumar Sahani said “Instead of giving any relief to us, the government is hiking the diesel price. What more can I say? I am incurring heavy losses now; don’t know how my business will sustain and will I be able to pay off my loans.”
Manoranjan Tripathy, a cab operator, was equally in distress and echoed the same feelings.
IT professional Arun Kumar Rout, who owns a four-wheeler, said, “This is not the right time to increase fuel prices when people are losing jobs and getting salary cuts.”
Biswa Bhusan Mohapatra, OP
