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The government will look at cutting the excise duty on petrol and diesel if the price of the products rises and burdens consumers.
"The government could look at reducing the excise duty at some point. This would be when the price of petroleum products increases and the burden falls on the consumers. The government's primary responsibility is to give relief to consumers and we will do this," Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Petroleum & Natural Gas, said on the sidelines of a Confederation of Indian Industry seminar on energy security.
The Minister's comments came a day after excise duty was hiked on petrol and diesel for the sixth time since November 2014.
The basic excise duty on unbranded petrol has been increased from ₹7.06 a litre to ₹7.36 and on unbranded diesel from ₹4.66 to ₹5.83 a litre. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday the fresh hikes would fetch ₹2,500 crore as revenue in the current fiscal.
Already in April-October 2015, the government has mopped up ₹ 9,903 crore from excise duty on petrol, nearly 58 per cent more than what it had got over the entire fiscal of 2014-15. Excise duty earnings from diesel during April-October 2015-16 were at ₹ 30,240 crore or 52 per cent more than the figure for the full fiscal of 2014-15.
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