Centre defers additional excise duty on petrol, diesel by 1 month
India Today
The Union government has deferred the Rs 2/ltr additional excise duty on petrol and diesel by a month.
The government has put off by one month the levy of an additional Rs 2 per litre excise duty on petrol and diesel that is not doped with ethanol and bio-diesel in a bid to give the industry more time to implement the measure.
The finance ministry, in a Gazette notification issued late on Friday (September 30), stated that the additional excise tax will now be levied from November 1, 2022.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had in her Budget for the fiscal year beginning April 2022 brought a Rs 2 per litre additional levy on petrol and diesel that is not blended with ethanol and bio-diesel, respectively. This duty was to be applicable from October 1, 2022, but now has been differed to November 1.
Presently, 10 per cent of ethanol, extracted from sugarcane or surplus food grain, is blended or mixed in petrol (meaning 10 per cent of ethanol mixed with 90 per cent of petrol) with a view to cutting oil import dependence and providing farmers with an additional source of income.
But there is only an experimental blending of bio-diesel, extracted from non-edible oilseeds, in diesel -- the most used fuel in the country.
"Blending of fuel is a priority of this government. To encourage the efforts for blending of fuel, unblended fuel shall attract an additional differential excise duty of Rs 2 per litre from the 1st day of October 2022," Sitharaman had stated in her Budget speech in the Lok Sabha on February 1.
In the September 30 notification, her ministry stated that "petrol which is intended for retail sale, not so blended with ethanol or methanol" will attract Rs 3.40 per litre basic excise duty effective November 1, 2022, instead of Rs 1.40 a litre currently.
