SHILLONG: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Tuesday informed that the prices of petrol and diesel in the state has been reduced by about Rs 7 approximately across the state.
“Both prices of petrol and diesel will be reduced by approximately by Rs 7 and done primarily to ensure some relief to consumers affected by the high prices of fuels,” informed the Chief Minister while speaking to media persons in his chamber.
Referring to recent prices of petrol and diesel in Shillong at Rs 91.26 per litre and Rs 84.23 per litre respectively, the Chief Minister said, “Keeping this aspect in mind and the fact that consumers are being affected and in spite of the fact that the state is facing a lot of financial issues and the VAT that we have collected from petrol and diesel has helped the state in these periods of Covid 19 and the challenges we have faced the government has decided that we will be reducing the VAT for petrol and diesel”.
The Chief Minister said the rate of VAT for petrol which currently is at 31.62 per cent or 17.60 per litre, would now be reduced to 20 per cent or Rs 15 per litre whichever is higher which would mean that the price of petrol in Meghalaya will be reduced from 91.26 Rs to 85.86 Rs- a reduction of approximately Rs 6 and if one was to add the earlier reduction of Rs 2 it would come to total reduction of Rs 7.4 per litre in shillong and in other district the impact would be accordingly felt.
On the price of diesel, the Chief Minister said, “In diesel, VAT rate currently 22.95 per cent or Rs 12 per litre, will now be reduced to 12 per cent or Rs 9 per litre. That means diesel prices will come down from Rs 84.23 in Shillong to Rs 79.13, a reduction of approximately Rs 5 and if the earlier reduction of Rs 2 included the total VAT reduction of diesel would come to approximately Rs 7.
Stating that the State Government has always maintained the competitive pricing with Guwahati in order to ensure that the sales are not affected, the Chief Minister said, “We are hopeful that with this our sales are will go up and we will be able to make up for some of the loses in the taxes due to the reduction of prices in both petrol and diesel.
Enquired about the estimated revenue with this move, the Chief Minister said, “Jump in the revenue compared to last year has been there and even though revenue will come down we expect that the revenue earned from overall VAT in petrol and diesel will go up from Rs 326 crore last year to at least Rs 470 crore this year a 140 crore jump and it would have been more if the prices had not come down but we want to ensure consumer gets some relief and we decided to cut the VAT”.
Admitting that it has been a difficult financial year, he said that through VAT and excise duty they have managed to get some relief that has helped the State and in the future the State Government is going to examine all possible ways to imposition of luxury tax etc., and find out ways to increase the revenue.
“Few months back we had included 10 or 14 items for cess and that will help raise at least Rs 70 crores and with that money we will be able to build 200 schools that we are doing,” he added.
Announcing the cut in prices of fuels, Conrad Sangma tweeted: “In addition to the previous rebate of Rs. 2 per litre, Meghalaya Government has decided to reduce the petrol price further by Rs.5.4 per litre and diesel by Rs. 5.1 per litre to offer relief to consumers of Meghalaya with a slight variations in different districts of the state.”