Centre collected ₹3.35 lakh crore excise from petrol, diesel in last fiscal

The Indian government on Monday has informed Lok Sabha that it collected ₹3.35 lakh crore excise duty from petrol and diesel. This was a whopping 88% jump from ₹1.78 lakh crore in the previous financial year, reports PTI. Such a whopping surge in excise duty collection came at the cost of a record excise duty hike that resulted in an incessant price hike for both motor fuels.

Excise duty on petrol was hiked from ₹19.98 per litre to ₹32.9 last year. The same on diesel was increased to ₹31.8 from ₹15.83 per litre. The petroleum ministry has said in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha that this excise duty was hiked to recoup gain arising from international oil prices. Crude oil prices in the international market plunged to a multi-year low as pandemic gulped demand.

The ministry also said that excise duty collections would have been higher but fuel sales slumped during the nationwide lockdown and subsequent restrictions impacted the numbers.

Petrol and diesel prices were increased incessantly since early this year. All the metro cities and several other regions too witnessed per litre petrol price crossing ₹100 mar for the first time ever. Diesel price too crossed ₹100 a litre mark in several places for the first time ever. More than one-and-a-half dozen states and union territories have petrol at over ₹100 per litre mark and diesel is above that level in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.

For the last one month, the price has been stable and in the last few days, it declined marginally. However, petrol prices in all the metro cities are still above the century mark.

Petrol and diesel prices on September 2, are unchanged across the four metros, after the marginal reduction on the previous day. Petrol price in Delhi is at ₹101.34 and diesel rate is ₹88.77 per litre.

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