Petrol-Diesel to be cheaper

| 31 October 2000 17:41 IST

Tourists planning to come down to Goa from mid-October onwards may have a little sigh of relief as the newly installed BJP government is planning to reduce petrol and diesel prices, along with other petroleum products.

"Rather than affecting our earnings, the reduction may ultimately help increasing our revenue base", claims Manohar Parrikar, the chief minister. He however claims that this is not a publicity stunt but a well-thought decision of fiscal management.

While sales tax contributes over 70 per cent of the state's total tax revenue base, its 60 per cent mobilisation comes from all kind of petroleum products. The tourist state collected around Rs 187 crore from petro products alone.

With a recent price hike in petroleum products as well as the government's decision to impose 10 per cent entry tax on all the petroleum products imported here for other purpose than sale, the tax revenue base is expected to rise by at least Rs 10 crore during this fiscal year.

Taking these factors into consideration, Parrikar is thus planning to respond to his party leader's call from the centre to reduce the tax at the state level, in order to provide relief for the consumer.

"I am visualising reduction of at least one rupee on petrol and diesel", he says. He has already called for statistical figures from the sales tax department, based on which the announcement is expected shortly.

While Goa imposes 20 per cent sales tax on petrol as decided by all the states under uniform tax policy, taxes on diesel, furnace oil and naphtha are 18 per cent whereas the uniform tax policy proposes minimum 12 per cent on it.

Besides this, the state also charges additional tax between 15 to 25 per cent in three different slabs for the gross turnover sale between Rs two crore to 15 crore, on the amount of sales tax paid to the government, which is not collected from the consumer directly.

Since petroleum companies fix the prices after calculating the burden of additional tax, Parrikar is exploring the possibility of reducing the amount of additional tax, provided the petro companies do not simply gobble it up but provide relief to the consumer by reducing the prices at retail level, especially in case of petrol.

As Goa's ST on several other petro products including diesel is already higher than the minimum uniform tax of 12 per cent fixed at national level, it may be brought down from 18 to 16 per cent or less, due to which prices of these products could also fall.

The rise in revenue earnings is visualised here as it would be equivalent to 10 per cent entry tax and 4 per cent CST paid when these products are imported by various industries for its own consumption. "Rather than facing the risk of pilferage, they may simply decide to buy it in Goa, resulting into rise in our earnings", claims Y S Pai Bir, assistant commission for sales tax.

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well its great to know this.But what about mumbai petrol rates lakhs of people comes here and goes out the govt of mumbai sholud take care of this..

- RAVIN, NAVI MUMBAI | 04 th August 2010 22:45