The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Opposition walks out over fuel prices

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 03, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version


=

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Opposition walks out over fuel prices

HYDERABAD: All the major Opposition parties staged a walkout in the Assembly on Tuesday protesting against the Central and State governments’ failure to slash the prices of petrol and diesel in spite of a steep fall in the international crude oil rates.

Before leading the walkout of TDP members, Leader of Opposition N. Chandrababu Naidu accused the Congress of failing to implement the 2004 election promise of rolling back the petrol and diesel prices. Had they been rolled back, the prices of all other essential commodities would also have come down.

While the duty on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) was reduced by 63 per cent by the government, the tax on diesel had gone up by 62 per cent, badly affecting the common man and farmers, he said.

The TRS, CPI(M), CPI, BJP and CPI(ML) New Democracy members followed suit, charging the government with ignoring the plight of the common man while protecting the interests of the rich.

Rejecting the charges, Commercial Taxes Minister Konathala Ramakrishna accused the Opposition of trying to derive political mileage. The Centre was contemplating to bring down the prices of petrol and diesel and an appropriate decision would be taken after elections in five States, he said.

Despite the fall in international crude oil prices, there was a deficit of 1.5 lakh crore in the oil pool account.

In all, the Centre was providing subsidy to the extent of Rs.2.5 lakh crore on fertilizers, petrol, diesel and kerosene, he added.

LPG subsidy

Hitting out at Mr. Naidu, the Minister said, unlike the TDP regime when the electricity charges were increased, the government had not hiked the rates correspondingly. The State government was now providing subsidy on each domestic LPG refill (cooking gas) which costs the exchequer Rs.312 crore.

Since 2004, the petrol and diesel prices increased 10 times and decreased six times with a net increase of Rs.18.71 and Rs.13.81 per litre respectively, he further added.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh

News Update

Stories in this Section