Kerala Cabinet on Thursday called upon the Centre to withdraw the petrol price hike. It also decided to forgo the increase in State taxes arising from the hike in price, consequent to which the price of petrol will come down by Rs. 1.63 a litre.
Briefing the media, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said here that he had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jaipal Reddy on Wednesday itself calling for withdrawal of the excessive increase in price of petrol. The Cabinet resolution would now be communicated to the Union Government.
Mr. Chandy said that the State would suffer a loss of additional revenue of Rs. 218 crore because of the decision to forgo tax. The government felt that it would be insincere to protest against the hike on petrol prices and accept tax on the increased portion of the price. However, the government would be incurring increased expenditure on purchase of petrol for its vehicles at higher prices. To offset this, the government would take austerity measures on the use of vehicles, without affecting efficiency of government.
He said that the Kerala government would also communicate its protests about the Central government’s decision to allow import of areacanut. The import was proposed on the ground that it was a raw material for manufacture good for exports.
The Chief Minister said that the Cabinet had approved the recommendations of the National Human Rights Commission to pay compensation to the victims of spraying of endosulfan by the Plantation Corporation of Kerala, in principle. The total expenditure for this would come to about Rs. 100 crore. The Cabinet had decided that the government and the corporation should share the amount equally. The Commission had recommended payment of Rs. 5 lakh each to the bedridden victims and next of kin of the dead. Rs. 3 lakh each were to be paid to other victims. The previous government had decided that the Corporation should bear the full cost of compensation. However, the present government had cancelled that order.
He said that the Cabinet had given the green signal for establishment of a medical college in Palakkad under the Scheduled Caste Welfare Department. A deputy labour commissioner would be put in charge of the area of construction of green field stadium for the National Games in Thiruvananthapuram after declaring it a special work area. Rs. 10 lakh each would be sanctioned for installation of statues of Malayalam film actors Satyan and Prem Nazir of yester years, on the basis of request made by committees formed for the purpose.
Keywords: Petrol price hike, NDA, UPA
people will not buy the vehicle in future because of the petrol rate increase
Coimbatore being an important city-2nd most important in TamilNadu deserves all trains, nearing it
to pass through it AND not bypass it. It is really worse on the part of Railways. Why it railways
has been neglecting coimbatore despite so much patronage and pleas.Kerala is causing a lot of
trouble to TamilNadu-be it power,trains, water or dams, Kerala has presented a role of a tough &
jealous competitor. It's extremely ironic that although Kerala has removed it's "half an hour"
load shedding/ power cut, it is asking for power from Kudankulam power plant which is located in
Tamilnadu which still faces a "half a DAY" load shedding / power cut. (DAY DAY DAY, I repeat,
NOTE DAY vs. HOUR). Why do Kerala-ites have no consideration for their neighbouring state? Trains
- Many Trains from Nagercoil, Kaniyakumari launched in the past budgets traverse through Kerala
(Via Trivandrum, Ernakulam/Cochin) and hardly very few pass through the Kaniyakumari-Nagercoil-
Madurai-Trichy-
The government must not interfere with the market and let it sort out it self.
A completely meaningless action that is aimed at telling the people that the state Congress does not agree with the Center. The state government should reduce sales tax to 10% or so instead of just foregoing the tax due to the price increase. Does the central government take any hit on the excise, or do they just pocket the additional revenue?
The hike in petrol prices is justified given the circumstances.
The waiving on sales tax by these states is very well in reducing the
burden on common citizen. All state governments should forego sales tax
on the hike proportionately as there is no reduction of revenue for
them. The political parties should also appeal to the state governments
to reduce the VAT/Sales tax instead of blaming the central government.
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