Shri Provash Ghosh, General Secretary, SUCI (Communist), issued the following statement on 03.12.2020.
When the common people of the country are reeling under unbridled harrowing rise in prices e of essential commodities—an endowment of the brazen anti-people pro-capitalist monetary and fiscal policies of the central BJP government—and trying to grapple with the Covid-19 pandemic as well as lockdown-induced economic woes, the price of LPG has been hiked by Rs 50 at one stroke triggering a further dent into the progressively depleting household expenses. In tandem are rising the retail prices of petrol-diesel disease without relent cascading effect of which is further pushing up the spiraling price line. Almost 70% component of the retail fuel tariff represents various taxes and cess imposed by the governments. It bears recall that though the government while de-regulating fuel prices promised that gains arising out of a dip in international crude market translating into fall in procurement cost would be passed on to the people by lowering retail tariff, fact is that the entire benefit of plummeting crude price (now hovering around $45 to 48 per barrel) has been usurped by the government by regularly increasing excise duty and cess since it is an easier option to finance deficit in exchequer caused by fall in revenue collection and liberal tax concessions and waivers granted to the corporate sector. In fact, by such periodic hikes in excise duty on fuel including LPG, the government had mopped up over Rs 1.7 lakh crore of additional revenue in 2019-20 and slated to garner as much as Rs 2 lakh crore in 2020-21 in the pandemic situation. Clearly, for this reason, petrol-diesel-LPG have been left out of the purview of GST and continued to be under excise duty mode.
We vehemently oppose such atrocious slaying of the already slayed countrymen and call upon all to rise in united protest against such fiscal gangsterism.
