The union government’s tax collections on petrol and diesel jumped by 88 per cent to INR 3.35 lakh crore in the year to March 31, after excise duty was raised to a record high, the Lok Sabha was informed on Monday. Excise duty on petrol was hiked from INR 19.98 per litre to INR 32.9 last year to recoup gain arising from international oil prices plunging to multi-year low as pandemic gulped demand.The same on diesel was raised to INR 31.8 from INR 15.83 a litre, according to a written reply to a question given by the Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Rameswar Teli in the Lok Sabha.
This led to excise collections on petrol and diesel jumping to INR 3.35 lakh crore in 2020-21 (April 2020 to March 2021), from INR 1.78 lakh crore a year back, he said.
Collections would have been higher but for fuel sales falling due to lockdown and other restrictions imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, which muted economic activity and stalled mobility.
The Economic Times reported on Monday reported that Government collected INR 1.12 lakh crore in GST for the month of August slightly below the July collection of INR 1.16 lakh crore. The revenue was 30% higher than the same period last year.
In 2018-19, excise collections on petrol and diesel were INR 2.13 lakh crore.
To a separate question, the Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said excise collections in April-June this year totalled INR 1.01 lakh crore.
This number includes excise on not just petrol and diesel but also ATF, natural gas and crude oil.
The total excise collection in FY21 was INR 3.89 lakh crore.
“Prices of petrol and diesel are market-determined with effect from June 26, 2010 and October 19, 2014 respectively,” Teli said.
Since then, the Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have been taking appropriate decisions on the pricing of petrol and diesel on the basis of international product prices and other market conditions.
“The OMCs have increased and decreased the prices of petrol and diesel according to changes in international prices and rupee-dollar exchange rate,” he said adding “effective June 16, 2017, daily pricing of petrol and diesel has been implemented in the entire country.”
The hike in taxes last year did not result in any revision in retail prices as they got adjusted against the reduction that was warranted because of fall in international oil prices.
But with the demand returning, international oil prices have soared, which have translated to record high petrol and diesel prices across the country. More than one-and-a-half dozen states and union territories have petrol at over INR 100-a-litre mark and diesel is above that level in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.
Teli said prices vary from state to state due to freight rates and VAT/local levies.
“The impact of the increase in prices of petrol and diesel can be seen in their impact on inflationary trend measured by Wholesale Price Index (WPI),” he said. “The weightage of petrol, diesel and LPG in the WPI index is 1.60 per cent, 3.10 per cent and 0.64 per cent respectively.”
He said during the current fiscal 2021-22, petrol price has been increased on 39 occasions and diesel on 36. The price of petrol has been cut on one occasion during this period and that of diesel on two occasions.
There was no change in the remaining days.
In the previous 2020-21, petrol price was hiked on 76 occasions and cut on 10 while diesel rates went up 73 times and were reduced on 24 occasions, his reply showed.
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Accordingly, in the national capital, petrol continues to be sold for Rs 101.49 per litre and diesel Rs 88.92 a litre.
”The import cost of crude oil has gone up. Hence, we (the central government) have to increase the retail prices of petrol, diesel, LPG. Certain things are not in our hands, because we import it,” the Union MSME minister said.
