It Is Getting Late

Irrespective of any justification to the contrary from any quarters, the fact remains that the uncontrolled and too frequent price hikes of fuel and cooking gas happening in quick succession have become a matter of concern for the common man. The price of fuel has a direct and indirect impact on the price of every other commodity. As far as the central and the state governments are concerned, as the fuel prices go up, their revenue also goes up correspondingly. About 62% of petrol price and 59% of diesel price goes to the central and State governments as various taxes. Central government gets about 62% and 67% of the total taxes levied on petrol and diesel respectively. The prices of petrol and diesel are going up almost daily, yet there are no moves either from the central government which gets the lion’s  share of the taxes on fuel or from the State government to bring down at least the tax component. In no other country, the tax component of fuel prices is so high as in India. The central government is also yet to consider the industry’s long pending demand to bring petrol and diesel within the ambit of GST, presumably because the revenue from fuel will be hit significantly.

Irrespective of the inflation figures being periodically released by the Central Statistical Organisation under the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, which are yet to be found as something which reflect reality, the price of every single commodity and every single service is going up, partly due to fuel price hike and partly due to some other factors. It is high time the central government intervened in the matter to regulate the fuel prices without testing the patience of the common man.