Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday said that while the Government was open to suggestions on dual pricing for diesel, it would be difficult to charge a market price for luxury cars and subsidised price for transport trucks at the same petrol pump.
“We have knocked our heads together to see if it is possible to have dual prices of diesel at the same retail petrol pump outlet,” he said replying to supplementaries during Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha.
He said the government had an open mind on the issue and was ready to consider suggestions on implementing dual pricing policy for diesel, provided that two different rates did not lead to black marketing.
The Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry had introduced market rates for bulk diesel consumers last month, raising the price of diesel by Rs. 10 per litre for bulk consumers. Reacting to demands for allowing state road transport corporations to buy subsidised diesel, Mr. Chidambaram said having dual rates for bulk and retail consumers was a policy decision taken in order to keep the diesel subsidy at reasonable levels. Members stated that state public transport corporations were finding it difficult to buy diesel at market rates.
The Finance Minister said central taxes on petrol and diesel had come down between 2007 and 2012. Central excise duty on petrol had come down from Rs. 14.66 a litre (as on March 1, 2007) to Rs. 9.46 (as on September 14, 2012), while the same on diesel had declined from Rs. 4.69 a litre to Rs. 3.56 per litre.
Mr. Chidambaram said while the Government garnered Rs. 95,349 crore in 2011-12 through customs and excise levy on petroleum products, state governments together collected more in taxes than the Centre this fiscal.
The Centre's take from these levies in 2010-11 was Rs. 1,02,827 crore and during April-December period current fiscal it was Rs. 71,818 crore, he said. “The taxes charged on mainstream petroleum products and the revenue collected from customs and excise duties on petro products has been generally declining for the last three years. The government has, during recent times, shifted to specific rate of excise duty from ad valorem rate to protect consumers when the prices go high,” he added.
Keywords: petrol pumps, diesel subsidy, dual pricing of diesel, P. Chidambaram, bulk diesel purchase
The problem with dual pricing can be implemented with following
certain steps.As Hon'ble. Finance minister is trying to discourage
diesel consumption and subsidy spending on high end private/luxury
vehicles.
* Nowadays all high-end cars are fitted with electronic odometer
where running data is recorded in ECU(Electronic Control Unit), which
cannot be altered easily.
* Govt can fix the monthly cap on running Kms say 500km per month,
for which diesel can be provided at subsidized price.
* If any extra usage( say 700Km) cost should be collected by customer
at market price of diesel. That means for 200Km customer has to pay
for the fuel at non-subsidized rate.
Now comes the problem of monitoring and money collection, which can
be done through RTO or Transport Authorities for extra running of the
vehicle, like we pay electricity bill of our home every month.
This would discourage private vehicle users from unnecessary usage,
promote public transport and burden on exchequer.
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