No more reduction in petroleum duty, says finance minister

The West Bengal government has ruled out more reduction in duties on petrol, diesel and cooking gas. Speaking at the state Assembly on Wednesday, minister for finance, Asim Dasgupta, who is also the chairman of the empowered committee of finance ministers on VAT said that since June, no other state has reduced duties on petroleum products again. The minister said that all the states wanted to know the formula on the basis of which the oil companies had fixed the basic prices of the petroleum products. There was a lack of transparency, he said, adding that the Centre too had asked the oil companies to make the pricing mechanism clear. He said the reduction of duties announced by the state government in June would lead to a revenue loss of Rs 374 crore. The government had reduced the sales tax on petrol from 25 to 20 per cent, 17 to 12.5 per cent on diesel and 12.5 per cent to four per cent on cooking gas