NEW DELHI: Lambasting the main Opposition Congress for refusing to pass on any benefit to the consumer, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Saturday that ”Rahul Gandhi and his reluctant allies are only committed to tweets and television bytes when it comes to give relief to the common man.
”The States benefit from higher oil prices. The Centre’s collection remains the same. Thus, the capacity of the States to give a Rs 2.5 benefit is within their capacity. Their extra tax collection, because of increase in oil prices, is much larger since their taxes are ad valorem. ”Yet we have a situation where a number of non-BJP non-NDA States have refused to pass on any benefit to the consumer,” wrote Mr Jaitley in his article ‘The Oil Prices and the Hypocrisy of the Opposition’ on Facebook.
”What are the people supposed to conclude? Are Rahul Gandhi and his reluctant allies only committed to tweets and television bytes when it comes to give relief to the common man?” he said.
Mr Jaitley stated depending on the ad valorem rate of VAT in the states and after collecting the VAT and getting 42 per cent of the Centre revenue, 60-70 per cent of the total oil tax goes to the States. ”Must not the non-BJP States be candid with the people and tell them that both in 2017 and 2018 they refused to give any relief to the people even from their higher revenues,”he asked.
They sent out tweets and gave television bytes but when it came to performance, they looked the other way, the Minister added. Mr Jaitley said, ”The challenges thrown up by the increase in the international price of crude oil cannot be resolved by either the tweets or television bytes of some opposition leaders. The problem is serious. The oil producing nations have capped their production, thus creating a demand-supply mismatch.” (AGENCIES)
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