SHILLONG, FEB 16: The Meghalaya Democratic Alliance government has reduced the prices of petrol and diesel by Rs 7.
This came following the indefinite strike called by the commercial vehicles for the past 14 days as a mark of protest against the fuel price hike and decision of the government to reduce the rate by only Rs 2.
Announcing this decision on Tuesday, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said, “The government of Meghalaya has decided to reduce the Value Added Tax (VAT) for petrol and diesel by approximately Rs 7.”
He said this is being done primarily to ensure that the consumers are not affected by the high prices and in order to give some relief to them.
“I am sure this will make the consumers of the state happy and even the commercial vehicles will also benefit from the reduction in the prices of petrol and diesel,” Sangma said.
Currently, the price of petrol is Rs 91.26 per litre while diesel is Rs 84.23 per litre compared to neighbouring Assam at Rs 86.25 for petrol and Rs 80.41 for diesel.
After today’s decision, the chief minister said that for petrol which currently is at Rs 31.62 percent or Rs 17.60 per litre will now be reduced to 20 percent or Rs 15 per litre whichever is higher.
“This would mean that the price of petrol in Meghalaya would reduced from Rs 91.26 to Rs 85.86, a reduction of approximately Rs 6 and if you were to include the earlier Rs 2 that we have already reduced it will come up to almost Rs 7.4 per litre,” he said.
Similarly, the chief minister said that the VAT structure for diesel will also be reduced to 12 percent or Rs 9 per litre whichever is higher from the current rate at 22.95 percent or Rs 12 per litre.
“This would mean that the cost of diesel would now be down to Rs 79.13 from Rs 84.23, a reduction of approximately Rs 5 in diesel and also if you were to include Rs 2 that was done initially that would be approximately Rs 7,” he informed.
On the other hand, Sangma also said that the state has always maintained competitive pricing with Assam in order to ensure that the sales are not affected.
“We are hopefull that with this, our sales also will go up and will be able to make up some of the losses in the taxes that we may have due to the reduction in the prices of both petrol and diesel,” he said.
According to him, the VAT collected from petrol and diesel has helped the state which has faced lots of challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, the chief minister said the revenue loss due to reduction in the VAT collection from petrol and diesel will be approximately Rs 20 crore every month.
“I would also like to inform you that the revenue compared to last year which is Rs 326 crore, this year in January, we have already touched Rs 451 crore. The jump in the revenue compared to last year has been there. Even though the revenue will come down, we expect that the overall revenue from VAT in the petrol and diesel will go up from Rs 326 crore last year to atleast Rs 470 crore this year, so it is Rs 140 crore jump but it would have been more if the prices had not come down,” he stated.
When asked, Sangma has ruled out any possibility for increasing the passenger fares. “We have revised the passenger fares in 2020 and whatever the fares revised in 2020 will be applicable,” he said.
By Our Reporter
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