The West Bengal government today ruled out any more reduction in duties on petrol, diesel and cooking gas.
The state's finance minister Asim Dasgupta, who is also chairman of the empowered committee of finance ministers on VAT, told the state Assembly during question hour that no other state had come forward to reduce duties on petroleum products after the last reduction in June.
He said that all the states wanted to know on what formula the oil companies had fixed the basic prices of the petroleum products. There was a lack of transparancy here, he said adding that the Centre had also wanted to know this.
The reduction of duties on petroleum products announced in June would have a revenue implication of Rs 374 crore for West Bengal, he said.
The sales tax on petroleum products had been reduced from 25 to 20 per cent and on diesel from 17 to 12.5 per cent, the minister said, noting that tax rates had also been reduced from 12.5 per cent to four per cent on cooking gas.
The finance minister, who was replying to supplementaries on a question put forward by Congress Legislature party leader Manas Bhuiyan on the subject, said that cess imposed by the state government on petrol and diesel cannot be reduced as the revenue earned from it was used for infrastructure development like road repair and road construction.