New Delhi: The Centre on Saturday announced a host of measures, including a reduction in excise duty on petrol by Rs 8 per litre and on diesel by Rs 6 per litre. This will reduce the price of petrol by Rs 9.5 per litre and of diesel by Rs 7 per litre, said Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in a series of tweets.
The Centre also announced an additional amount of Rs 1.10 lakh crore as fertiliser subsidy. This is in addition to the budgetary allocation of Rs 1.05 lakh crore in order to provide further cushion to farmers due to rising fertiliser prices as a result of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. “Despite rising fertiliser prices globally, we have protected our farmers from such price hikes,” said Sitharaman.
Also, this year, the Centre will give a subsidy of Rs 200 per gas cylinder (up to 12 cylinders) to over 9 crore beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. “This will help our mothers and sisters. This will have a revenue implication of around Rs 6,100 crore a year while the cut in excise on diesel and petrol will have revenue implication of around Rs 1 lakh crore per year for the government,” the Finance Minister stated.
Sitharaman also announced impending cuts in customs duty on several raw materials and intermediaries where the import dependence is high. “This will result in reduction of cost of final products,” she said. These include chemicals, plastics, intermediaries for iron and raw materials of steel will be reduced.
Measures are being taken up to improve the availability of cement and through better logistics to reduce the cost of cement.
“I wish to exhort all state governments, especially the states where reduction (tax on petrol and diesel) wasn’t done during the last round (November 2021), to also implement a similar cut and give relief to the common man,” observed the Finance Minister.
Export duty on some steel products will be levied to make up for some of the revenue loss.
Justifying the measures, she said the Prime Minister’s Office has “specifically asked all arms of the government to work with sensitivity and give relief” to the common man.