Centre imposing four types of cess on petroleum products: Harish

Hyderabad: The Centre is imposing four types of cess on petroleum products in the country and collecting about Rs 27.9 per litre on petrol and Rs 21.8 per litre on diesel after a marginal reduction of Rs 10 road cess on April 11 last year. During last fiscal of 2021-22, the union government collected more […]

Hyderabad: The Centre is imposing four types of cess on petroleum products in the country and collecting about Rs 27.9 per litre on petrol and Rs 21.8 per litre on diesel after a marginal reduction of Rs 10 road cess on April 11 last year. During last fiscal of 2021-22, the union government collected more than Rs 4 lakh crore through cess on petroleum products in the country, said Finance Minister T Harish Rao.

Speaking to mediapersons here on Saturday, the Finance Minister reacted sharply to BJP State president Bandi Sanjay’s accusations blaming the State government for not reducing the VAT on petroleum products. While the State government has not increased the VAT since the State formation, the union government has been collecting four types of cess – Special Additional Excise Duty (SAED), AED-1, AED-2 and 3 per cent cess in addition to Basic Excise Duty (BED).

“The cess on petroleum products are higher under the NDA regime than the UPA government. Except for a marginal reduction of Rs 10 road cess, the union government has been collecting these four types of cess in addition to basic excise duty. However, the BJP State leaders are trying to blame the State,” he added. During the corresponding period, the price of LPG domestic cylinder from Rs 415 to over Rs 1,000 apart from reducing the subsidy to a meagre Rs 40.

Further, the Centre has been violating the mandatory sharing of 41 per cent of its total tax collections with the States, by imposing different cess and denying a share in the same to the States. Thus, compared to actual revenues to the Centre through taxes and cess, the States are getting only 29 per cent of total revenue of the nation.

“This is nothing but a conspiracy by the BJP government to weaken the States and make them dependent on the Centre, in utter violation of federal spirit of the nation. Unable to bear with these actions, economists like Arvind Subramaniam, Arvind Panagariya and Urjit Patel have resigned to their respective posts even before their term expired,” Harish Rao said.

The Finance Minister also ridiculed Sanjay for giving credit of providing irrigation water in erstwhile Mahabubnagar to former Minister DK Aruna and reminded that it was Aruna who as the then Minister performed ‘Mangala Harathi’ when water was illegally diverted from Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme to Rayalaseema causing injustice to Telangana. “Chandrashekhar Rao, as the TRS President, was the first person to raise his voice against the injustice meted out to Telangana by diverting water from RDS. Aruna should explain her contribution to address the water problems of Palamuru region during her tenure as the Minister in the then Congress government.

He challenged union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy and Bandi Sanjay to get national project status to Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme (LIS) from the Centre which sanctioned the national project status to Ken-Betwa River inter-linking project and Upper Bhadra. He advised the BJP leaders to stop speaking like Andhra leaders during the Telangana movement and instead, work with honesty to provide their commitment towards people of Telangana.

Harish Rao also slammed the BJP State leaders for using abusive language on his Cabinet colleague and TRS working president KT Rama Rao. Rather than responding to his challenge, the BJP leaders were unnecessarily resorting to personal attacks against the IT and Industries Minister.

 

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