Excise hike of petrol and diesel at the cost of consumers

Government raises taxes on petrol and diesel even as crude oil prices went drastically low.

Special additional excise duty and road infrastructure cess on petrol is increased by a total of Rs 3 per litre.

The price of petrol in Delhi stood at Rs 69.87 per litre, while diesel price was Rs 62.58 per litre, currently.

Special additional excise duty on petrol was hiked by Rs 2 to Rs 10 per litre...

...while the levy on diesel was doubled to Rs 4 per litre, the finance ministry said in a notification.

Oil posted the biggest weekly plunge since 2008 as the coronavirus crushes demand.

The increase in duty rates distressed the consumers as they expected lower prices.

It seems the government wants to mop up its own treasury in the name of excise hike

There will be an immediate increase in net fuel price for consumers due to the excise raise.

This will adversely impact the already disrupted consumption pattern owing to the spread of coronavirus.

A complete pass-through would have given a lot of comfort to consumers

By increasing excise duty government has limited the benefits for the consumers

Every Re 1 hike in excise duty on petrol, diesel boosts government’s revenue by about Rs 14,000 crore.

If due to slowdown, consumption of fuel declines up to 15 percent...

... the equivalent increase in duties will not have any impact on government revenues

Excise duty on petrol and diesel raised nine times between November 2014 and January 2016

In all, duty on petrol rate was hiked by ₹11.77 per litre and that on diesel by 13.47 a litre

Government's excise mopped up more than double to ₹2,42,000 crore in 2016-17 from ₹99,000 crore in 2014-15.

Again the government wants to steal the relief from consumers by increasing the excise and cess.