Government cuts excise duty on petrol by Rs 8/litre, diesel by Rs 6/litre, urges all states to follow suit & give relief to common man

The government on Saturday announced to slash central excise duty on petrol by Rs 8 per litre and on diesel by Rs 6 per litre in an attempt to give relief to citizens from higher fuel prices. The finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced this through her Twitter handle.

According to Sitharaman, “With a reduction in central excise duty on fuel, this will ease the price of petrol by Rs 9.5 per litre and of diesel by Rs 7 per litre. This move will have a revenue implication of around Rs 1 lakh crore per year for the government.”

The finance minister exhorted that all state governments, especially the states where the reduction wasn’t done during the last round (November 2021), to also implement a similar cut and give relief to the common man.

Also, this year, the government will give a subsidy of Rs 200 per gas cylinder (up to 12 cylinders) to over 9 crore beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, the finance minister said, adding that this will have a revenue implication of around Rs 6100 crore a year.

In a slew of relaxations, the finance minister also said that the government also reducing the customs duty on raw materials and intermediaries for plastic products wherein the country’s import dependence is high and this will result in a reduction of the cost of final products.

Similarly, the government calibrating customs duty on raw materials and intermediaries for iron and steel to reduce their prices, Sitharaman said, adding that the import duty on some raw materials of steel will be reduced and export duty on some steel products will be levied.

She also pointed out that the measures are being taken up to improve the availability of cement and through better logistics to reduce the cost of cement. Notifications with specific details on all the above will be issued by the government within the next hour, the FM said.