New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi lashed out at the Central Government on Monday, teasing that people should beware of ‘pickpockets’, regarding rising fuel prices.
The former Congress chief cited a news report on his tweet that said the petrol prices in some states have crossed Rs 120 a litre, and that the Centre collected Rs 2.3 lakh crore in 2018-19 and Rs 2.58 lakh crore in 2017-18 by way of fuel taxes. ‘Beware of pickpockets,’ he captioned the tweet in Hindi, using the hashtag ‘#TaxExtortion’.
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— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) November 1, 2021
According to official data, the government’s collection from the levy of excise duty on petroleum products has risen by 33% in the first six months of the current fiscal, as compared to last year, and is 79% more than the pre-Covid levels. Data available from the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) in the Union Ministry of Finance pointed out that the excise duty collections during April-September, 2021 surged to over Rs 1.71 lakh crore from the Rs 1.28 lakh crore mop-ups in the same period of the previous fiscal. CGA data showed that the excise collections were Rs 3.89 lakh crore in the full 2020-21 fiscal, and in 2019-20, it was Rs 2.39 lakh crore.
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The opposition party has been accusing the government of extortion in the name of taxes on petrol and diesel constantly. It has also charged the government with ‘profiteering’ from fuel tax and ‘fleecing’ the common people.
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