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CITU demands cut in fuel prices

Special Correspondent

ATF price cut meant to appease private airlines: CITU
“Present tax structure is against common man”

NEW DELHI: Resenting the decision of the Manmohan Singh government to reduce the price of Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF), the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) on Saturday charged the move was made to appease private airlines.

Stating that the price of ATF was currently lower than petrol, CITU demanded the government to immediately reduce the price of petrol, diesel and cooking gas. It asked the working class to mobilise the people to expose the “anti-people” face of the UPA government, “masquerading as the government for the ‘Aam Aadmi.’”

“Untenable”

In a statement, CITU president M.K. Pandhe said inspite of repeated demands from the common man to bring down the prices of petrol, diesel and LPG to reduce the inflationary burden, the government has refused to do so even as the global prices of crude oil has fall over 50 per cent. Instead, the government has reduced the price of ATF three times during the last three months as well as reduced the taxes on it.

The CITU said refusal of the government to give relief to common man on the plea of poor financial health of oil marketing companies (OMC) was totally untenable when the same OMCs were being forced by the government to defer the payment of Rs. 2,000 crore by the airlines for the sake of private airlines.

It charged that the Centre’s present tax structure shows its clear bias against ‘Aam Aadmi’ in favour of airlines. It said the present excise duty on ATF is Rs. 1.80 per litre, as against Rs. 3.60 per litre on diesel and Rs. 13.35 litre on petrol. Similarly, import duty was higher on petrol and diesel as compared to ATF.

“This clearly shows that the farmers and fishermen using diesel, transport carriers for essential commodities, bus and rail commuters, scooter and motorcycle users are virtually subsidising the airlines because of taxation policy of the government,” the statement said.

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