Abolish Central cess of Rs2 per litre of petrol and diesel: Pune NGO

Published: Sunday, May 15, 2011, 12:54 IST 
By DNA Correspondent | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA

Even as the state-owned oil companies have hiked prices of petrol from Saturday midnight, the city non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have demanded abolition of cess collected by the Centre on petrol and diesel.

President of Sajag Nagrik Manch (SNM), Vivek Velankar has demanded that the Central government should abolish cess of Rs2 per litre on petrol and diesel as it has become redundant. 
The NGO has sent a letter to prime minister, Manmohan Singh on the issue and has also started an online movement. Citizens can click on http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Sajag821/petition.html and sign a petition for the demand.

Velankar said the Union government is collecting cess of Rs2 per litre on sale of petrol and diesel since 1998-99. The entire collection from the petrol cess is supposed to be shared between the National Highway Authority of India (57.5%), Indian Railways (12.5%) and state road projects (30%).

“The Union government has not published any figures on how much cess has been collected every year so far and what has been the utilisation of the amount collected. One of 
the estimates claimed the total cess collected on petrol and diesel is to the tune of Rs30,000 crore,” Velankar claimed.

He said the NHAI has failed to declare the figures of money they received every year from the Central government and utilisation of 
that money.

According to Velankar, the NHAI does not need any money for road development now as they are awarding all road projects to private agencies on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis and people are paying toll charges for decades for using the roads so developed. 
“So cess on petrol and diesel and toll on road is double taxation,” he argued.