Increase In Price Of Petrol And Diesel. Act Of God Or A Failure Of The Government?

We get our cars insured but in the future, we’ll need to get our petrol insured too and if we don’t get it done and our cars get stolen, then the grief of losing the petrol will be a lot higher. From the past 6 months, Petrol taxes are increasing as rapidly as corona patients. In October taxes increased and crossed 200% mark meaning taxes for the government are double the price paid by the dealer and as always you would be having no idea about this.

Every month Controller General of accounts declares revenue and expenses of the central government and on September 30th they declared the same from the month of april to august. If we compare it with the data from 2019 then there is a huge decrease in the number of tax collection. Major taxes collected by the government are Income tax, corporate tax, custom duties, central goods and services tax, goods and services tax, compensation cess or excise duties. Author and economic expert Mr Vivek Kaul show that if we take an average of all the taxes collected then we see a huge drop of 23.7% which is equivalent of the country’s GDP. A decrease of NET 5 lakh crore rupees and you are right if you think that this happened because of the locdown. But if we look at the chart closely we’ll see that there is one tax that has seen growth instead of decline.

That tax is excise Duty. Due to corona, other taxes are struggling but excise duty is still enjoying. Total 32.07 growth in excise duty collections(Over one lakh crore rupees). But how, how did the excise duty collections increased by, you don’t know about it, The reasons are petrol and diesel that we buy without any question. The central government applies excise duty on the purchase of petrol and diesel and in 2020 the number grew exponentially and not just once but twice they increased the taxes.
Firstly they increased the excise duty in march then again in may, Excise duty on petrol was 19.98 rupees before the march then Government increased the excise duty by 3 rupees in march and 10 rupees in may on petrol. Excise duty on diesel was 15.83 rupees before march then the government increased the excise duty by 3 rupees in march and 13 rupees in may on diesel. What an amazing sprint from 3 rupees to 13 rupees. 

Firstly, they increased by 3 rupees to see if anyone is outraging or not but everyone was busy with Tablighi Jamat and nobody said anything then they increased by 10 rupees in petrol in may. Now some of you must be thinking that the government did this because of this loss occurred due to covid.
But wait there is a whole new game going on here i'll explain-

On March 1st price of 1-litre petrol excluding the taxes was 32.93 rupees and including taxes was 71.71 rupees and 1st October price of 1-litre petrol excluding the tax is 25.68 rupees and including taxes is 81.06 rupees whereas the price for 1 barrel of oil was 55 dollars and today its almost 41 dollars. Amount of tax in march was rupees 35.23 in march and today its 51.69 rupees. In march 49 % of the total amount used to go to the government whereas today it's 64%. and both the central and state government are getting benefited from it and it’s a fact that nobody is clean, but there is a twist in here. When the government increased the tax amount by 10 rupees in may then 8 rupees were taken in the name of road and infrastructure tax. The whole cess amount stays with the central government, unlike the GST and by the way, state governments aren’t getting gst as well. The picture is exactly the same for diesel as well. Consumption has gone a lot lesser but the profit kept on increasing.
 Whereas if we even talk about Pakistan, the price of petrol and diesel in Pakistan are rupees 46.23 and 47.35 respectively. 

If we compare the price with every country from the subcontinent then let me tell you, price of petrol and diesel in Pakistan are 46.23 and 47.35 respectively. If we compare the price with every country from the subcontinent India is on the top on the list. Fun fact, Nepal purchases the petrol from us and sells it at a much lower price,

Conclusion

Now some of you must be thinking that the country is in a bad condition the government needs funding and there is nothing wrong in increasing the petrol and diesel prices?
Look first of all I don't think our condition is any day worsen then that of Pakistan but still the price of petrol and diesel is much more then there's and ofcourse we can help the country, in fact we are doing it. But government should ask us first clearly, that we don’t have the money and they should hold there there expensive projects like central vista project, but that is not the case.on one hand government is spending on big projects like film city, airports and especially statue of unity and on the other hand they are charging people for that. 

My only question is that why the government never understands that the complete lockdown was a failure, the demonitisation was a failure, gst was a failure etc etc. cause only because of  there failures and expenses we are the one those who have to pay for it. 



AbhishekRawat
ContentWriter
@DayLightMedia