Oil price dilemma

Tax cuts alone may not be able to check retail prices of oil if OPEC continues its production cut and the US president his adversarial policy towards Iran

Last year when the global oil prices started their march upwards, all that the ministries of petroleum and natural gas, and finance had to say was that states should agree to bring five petroleum products into the goods and service tax (GST) fold. These five products were consumer facing natural gas, petrol, diesel and ATF, besides crude oil. States, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the media, should cut other tax levied on petrol and diesel even as Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia, currently on leave, ruled out any cut in central excise duty that was increased steadily over two financial years