Industry & Economy
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Petroleum
`Only Centre has options to control fuel price rise'
Our Bureau
Chennai
,
Sept. 26
THE Centre has various options to rein in fuel prices, which it is not exercising, according to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa.
Intervening during the debate on the first supplementary estimates in the Assembly today, she said that the Centre has more options than the State, which has limited revenue sources, to control increased costs of petrol and diesel.
The Centre could cut various duties and levies such as the one on imports, excise and cess to control the rising costs of petrol and diesel. These could compensate for the increasing costs of fuel in the international market, which is blamed for the fuel price increase, she said and added that it was not fair to expect the State Government to cut sales tax on these two commodities. Tamil Nadu levied a sales tax of 30 per cent on petrol and 25 per cent on diesel.
Ms Jayalalithaa said that the country's entire requirement of fuel oil was not imported and some are produced domestically. But the price of domestically produced fuel is also pegged at international levels and this contributes to the increase.
The Centre's policy was only protecting the profit margins of the multi-crore oil-marketing companies and of the public and private sector refineries.
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