The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has described the BJP-led Central Government’s decision to reduce petro prices by ₹ 2 a litre as an “eye wash” as the prices of petro products had witnessed an upward rise since the past several months.
CPI (M) Polit Bureau member B.V. Raghavulu said the NDA Government had significantly enhanced the excise duty on petrol and diesel ever since it took over the reins three-and-a-half years ago imposing a huge burden on the consumers. The excise duty on petrol for instance was ₹ 9 before the NDA came to power and it had gone up to ₹ 23 at present.
The duty on diesel had shot up from ₹ 3 to ₹ 17 during the same period reflecting the manner in which the Centre had hiked the prices.
In addition to effecting abnormal increase in prices, the Centre Government had ensured that petrol and diesel were not brought under the ambit of the Goods and Services Tax. Inclusion of petro products in GST list would have significantly reduced their prices, but the Centre was not willing to implement the same. “Instead of bringing down excise duty nominally, the Central Government should conduct a review of the petro prices over the past couple of months and take steps to bring down the additional burden imposed on the consumers,” he said.
He said the CPI (M) had decided to conduct a three-day dharna in New Delhi from November 9 to 11 in protest against the Central Government’s failure in addressing the key issues facing the country.
The crisis in farm sector, problems of employees on account of the implementation of the contributory pension scheme and other issues would be raised during the three day sit in.
CPI (M) State secretary Tammineni Veerabhadram charged the TRS with not fulfilling its election promises. like three acre land to each dalit family remained on paper three-and-a-half years after the party came to power. Instead of taking steps to fulfil its assurance, the Government was trying to hoodwink the people on some pretext or the other. The Government should deposit ₹ 10 lakh each in the accounts of dalit families that were not covered under the land scheme if it was committed to its promise.
