Tamil Nadu slashes petrol cess by Rs 3; state to bear Rs 1,160 crore cost
Tamil Nadu Budget 2021: DMK in its election manifesto had promised to slash the price of petrol by Rs 5 per litre.
People of Tamil Nadu will get a slight breather as the petrol prices are set to come down marginally. While announcing the budget today, Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan (PTR) announced that cess on petrol will be slashed by Rs 3 and it would help in bringing down the skyrocketing prices. Thiagarajan added that this was done as per the instructions of chief minister MK Stalin and this reduction in cess will cost the state treasury close to Rs 1,160 crore.
As per the budget, the state revenue for this fiscal is Rs 2,60,409.26 crore and expenditure is Rs 2,61,88.57 crore. The fiscal deficit stands at Rs 58,692 crore.
This is the maiden budget presented by the newly elected DMK government led by MK Stalin which rose to power in the recently concluded Assembly elections. It had dislodged the AIADMK government which ruled Tamil Nadu for 10 straight years with three CMs being at the helm of affairs.
High prices and a pre-poll promise
As of today, petrol is selling at Rs 102.49 per litre, while diesel is at Rs 94.39 per litre in Chennai, Tamil Nadu’s capital city. The Union and State governments both add their respective taxes to the base price of petrol, which determines the final price. The Union government levies a larger portion of the tax.
Now the Tamil Nadu government will slash Rs 3 from the tax it levies on petrol and it will bear the loss to the tax revenue arising out of it. Petrol prices have been hiked for 41 days in the current fiscal. Petrol price per litre has breached the Rs 100 mark in all metros across the country.
DMK in its election manifesto for the last Assembly poll promised to slash the prices of petrol and diesel by Rs 5 per litre and Rs 4 per litre, respectively. Finance Minister Thiagarajan said that some promises cannot be fulfilled with immediacy and things will be done over a period of time.
The Opposition AIADMK boycotted this financial exercise and it said in a statement that getting NEET cancelled was one of the failures of the incumbent DMK regime. Tamil Nadu government had recently released a white paper of the state’s financial condition and Thiagarajan’s budget follows that. He said that this revised budget will create a strong foundation for the full-fledged budget for 2022.