Thiruvananthapuram: Bringing gasoline, diesel and cooking gas below GST will not help in reducing prices, said Minister of Finance in Balagopal on Wednesday on Wednesday.
Replying to the call attention movement by Thiruvanchor Radhakrishnan asked the government to bring this under the Ambit GST, the minister said that under GST only a maximum tax of 28% can be slapped on these products, the state will only receive 14% of tax income.
“Actual worries are special CESS slapped by the center which is the main part of income, and it goes to the center alone,” he said.
Every time international crude oil prices are reduced, the center slaps additional CESS and because of this, the benefits of reducing crude oil prices do not reach the public.
Also, this additional income of cesses is not shared with the state.
For this reason, the only way to reduce the price of gasoline and diesel must be done with additional CESS slapped by the center, he said.
He said that when this problem was discussed at the GST Council, most countries including those ruled by Congress against the idea of taking him under the Ambit GST, he said.
He said that while most of the tax imposed on petroleum products were taken by the center, income was not distributed according to America.
The minister said that when the LDF government came to power in 2016, gasoline sales and diesel sales were 31.80% and 24.50% respectively.
But the government reduced 30.08% and 22.76% respectively.
After that, the tariff has not been changed, he said.
The minister added that the real reason is that the power of gasoline and diesel improvements has been submitted to the market and now, the tariff rotates even outside the actual market conditions.
High fuel price because special Cess central: kerala fm k n balagopal
