In a strongly-worded letter on Tuesday, Congress President Sonia Gandhi asked the Narendra Modi government to slash the excise duty on petrol and diesel and transfer the benefits of a low global crude oil price to the people of the country battered by the COVID-19 pandemic. "Your government is seeking to earn an additional revenue of nearly Rs. 2,60,000 crores by these ill-advised hikes in excise duty and increases in the petrol of diesel. As it is, people across the board are facing unimaginable hardships and what to say of widespread fear and insecurity. These price increases are saddling our people with an additional burden of this enormous magnitude that is neither justified nor appropriate. It is the duty and responsibility of the government to alleviate suffering, not put the people to still greater hardship," Gandhi said in her letter to PM Modi.
She also requested the Centre to use "the government's resources to put money directly into the hands of those who need it in this time of severe hardship."
After an 83-day hiatus owing to the Covid-induced lockdown, the oil marketing companies have hiked petrol prices by Rs 5.47 per litre and diesel by Rs 5.8 a litre in 10 days. The oil marketers are passing on the tax burden incurred after the hike in excise duty on the fuels by the Centre to the customers by increasing the price of petrol and diesel when international crude oil prices are below $40 a barrel.
READ: Why are petrol, diesel prices rising, despite low crude oil prices?
"I see no logic in why the government would even consider such a price increase at a time when the economic impact of Covid-19 is depriving millions of jobs and livelihood, devastating business big and small, rapidly eroding the income of the middle class, even as farmers are struggling to sow the crop for the kharif season," she further said. "The government is doing nothing short of profiteering off its people—when they are down and out."
She pointed out that the Modi government, over the past six years in power, has increased the excise duty on petrol by 258 per cent and that on diesel by 820 per cent. The hikes have yielded "a staggering Rs. 18,00,000 crore from excise collection on petrol and diesel alone" in six years. "If ever there was ever a time to deploy these resources in the service of the people, it is now," she noted.
Referring to Modi's call for 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat', the Congress leader said: "If you wish for them to be ‘self-reliant' then do not place financial fetters on their ability to move forward."
