Include petrol, diesel under VAT, says Ram Naik

Panaji, Sep 25 (UNI) Lambasting Petroleum Minister Murli Deora for increase in prices of petrol and diesel, former Petroleum Minister and Senior BJP lead Ram Naik urged Mr Deora to include the fuels VAT to reduce the burden of higher sales tax.

Mr Naik who was in Goa to address a public meeting of All India Vande Mataram awareness campaign programme, to be held today in Vasco in south Goa told media persons that as the Finance Minister has not included petrol and diesel under VAT scheme the sales tax rates are very high in many states.

He added that sales tax on diesel was 22.88 per cent in Goa while, it was 12.50 per cent in Delhi. Similarly, sales tax on Petrol was 24.90 per cent in Goa against 20 per cent in Delhi.

He said, diesel, which was sold at Rs 21.74 per litre in April 2004 now costs Rs 35.35, an increase of Rs 13.61. Petrol price has gone up by Rs 14.73 per litre from Rs 33.71 to Rs 48.44.

Mr Naik said, Vajpayee government's policy was to provide ''smoke-free kitchens'' and to relive women from the drudgery of cooking.

We liquidated waiting list of 1.10 crores LPG customers by providing four crore new connections. The new connections were being given on demand. However, during the last 28 months, artificial scarcity has been created by Manmohan Singh government resulting in black-marketing.

Inspite of international increased prices we did not increase LPG prices for two years from April 2002. However, Manmohan Singh government, which swears by the common man, increased them twice by more than Rs 50 per cyclinder.

''India imports 70 per cent of its crude oil requirments which in terms of value were Rs 1,71,702 crore. To reduce the burden on heavy imports, we introduced 5 per cent ethanol blending in petrol in sugar cane producing states from Janaury 2003 which provided better prices to sugarcane producing states.

The second phase was to provide 5 per cent ehanol in remaining states and third phase was to increase the qunatity of ethanol upto 10 per cent. However, the government suddently stopped the purchase of ethanol,'' he said.

Mr Deora had recently announced that the ethanol purchase will begin from November 1 this year.

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