The minister said the BJP-led Centre has been placing an unbearable burden on the people by jacking up petrol prices.
Published Mar 30, 2023 | 6:07 PM ⚊ Updated Mar 30, 2023 | 6:07 PM
Telangana IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao. (Twitter)
Telangana IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao on Thursday, 30 March, demanded the immediate lowering of the prices of petroleum products as the price of crude oil was back at 2013 levels.
In an open letter to the Centre, Rama Rao, popularly known as KTR, said there should be an immediate halt to the plundering of people that has been going on unchecked.
He said that though Telangana had not raised the tax on petroleum products since 2014, the Centre had collected about ₹30 lakh crore in the name of cess till now.
He demanded that the cess being imposed on petroleum products should be withdrawn given that the price of crude was at $70 per barrel.
He said that the Centre’s argument that for the prices to come down, petroleum products should be brought under the purview of GST was one that did not wash.
He also noted that it is the BJP government at the Centre that had increased the price of LPG from ₹400 per cylinder to ₹1,200 currently.
The minister pointed out that the Centre was preventing a discussion on petroleum product prices in Parliament as it has no satisfactory answers, and reminded Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the people were watching him and how he was making life difficult for them.
“The only way to end the looting of the people is by getting rid of the saffron party’s dispensation. If the Centre does not roll back the prices, the people will teach a fitting lesson to it at an appropriate time,” said KTR.
The minister said that the BJP-led central government has been placing an unbearable burden on the people by jacking up the prices of petroleum products on the pretext of the ever-increasing price of crude in the international markets.
The Telangana minister noted that when a barrel of crude was $110 in 2013, the petrol price in India was ₹76 per litre, adding that the price of crude oil has crashed to $66 and yet the price of petrol was at ₹110 per litre.
He said he has been proved right that the prices of domestic petroleum products are decided by the Narendra Modi government and not by the price of crude in the international market.
“The Centre has been using the crude prices in international markets as a ruse to repeatedly hike the prices of the products at home, unmindful of the fact that it has been affecting the people,” said KTR.
“The Centre has increased the price of petroleum products by 45 percent since 2014, which has resulted in transportation becoming expensive. This had a cascading effect on the prices of other commodities. The steep increase in the prices forced the states to raise the fares in public transportation systems,” KTR noted.
“This thoughtless measure of increasing the prices of petroleum products at home continuously resulted in runaway inflation,” he added.
The minister said that ever since the war broke out between Ukraine and Russia, India has been showing it as an excuse for raising prices, but the fact is that India has been purchasing crude at a very low price from Russia and was not passing on the benefits to the people.
“The Centre’s announcement that importing crude from Russia had helped in saving ₹35,000 crore is a travesty of truth since the benefit does not go to the people but to the oil refining companies,” said KTR.
The Centre, while patting its back for managing to get crude cheap, was, however, hiding the fact that it was selling it to other countries at a very high price, he said, adding that the Union government had slashed windfall tax on refining companies despite the fact that they were making roaring profits.
