Petrol and diesel prices remained unchanged on December 22, according to a price notification by state-owned fuel retailers. The fuel rates have been static after the excise duty cut by the Centre to bring down retail rates from record highs.
The government cut excise duty on petrol by Rs 5 per litre and that on diesel by Rs 10 a litre on November 3 to give relief to consumers battered by record-high retail fuel prices. Following this, many states and union territories have cut value-added tax (VAT) to give further reprieve to consumers battered by record-high retail prices.
The latest in the list is Delhi that reduced the (VAT) on petrol from 30 percent to 19.4 percent, leading to a cut of around Rs 8 per litre. Effective from December 1 at midnight, the VAT cut reduced the petrol price in the city Rs 95.41 per litre. It remained the same on December 22. Diesel price also remained unchanged in Delhi at Rs 86.67 per litre.
The price remained the same in other metro cities. The November 4 decline took the price of petrol in Mumbai to Rs 109.98 a litre. The price remained the same on December 22. Diesel price also stayed unchanged at Rs 94.14 per litre on the day.
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The petrol and diesel prices remained unchanged in Kolkata at Rs 104.67 per litre and Rs 89.79 per litre, respectively.
Chennai retailed a litre of petrol at the same price of Rs 101.40. Diesel price also remained unchanged at Rs 91.43 per litre.
The excise duty cut was the highest-ever reduction in excise duty. Reducing the excise duty, the union government also urged states to commensurately reduce or value-added tax (VAT) on petrol and diesel to give relief to consumers.
The states/UTs that extended additional VAT benefits are Ladakh, Karnataka, Puducherry, Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim, Mizoram, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Gujarat, Nagaland, Punjab, Goa, Meghalaya, Odisha, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Andaman and Nicobar, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
States that have so far not lowered VAT include Congress and its allies ruled Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu. TMC-governed West Bengal, Left-ruled Kerala, TRS-led Telangana and YSR Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh have also not cut VAT.
Congress-ruled Punjab has seen the biggest reduction in the price of petrol in the country after it cut local sales tax or VAT the most while UT of Ladakh witnessed the largest reduction in diesel rates for the same reason.
Meanwhile, around 1,400 petrol pumps across Jharkhand remained closed on December 21, demanding a reduction in VAT, their association said. The strike evoked an overwhelming response as all the petrol pumps in the state remained shut since morning, said Jharkhand Petroleum Dealers' Association (JPDA) general secretary Sharad Dudani.
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