Oppn rebuts FinMin on cost of UPA oil bonds

Interest on bonds just 3.2% of taxes collected on petroleum products, says Congress

The Congress and the Left on Tuesday reacted sharply to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s assertion that it is difficult to reduce fuel taxes as the government has to foot the bill for oil bonds issued by the UPA, with former finance minister P. Chidambaram calling the argument ‘incredible ignorance at best and motivated malignity at the worst’. “The FM’s statement that servicing oil bonds stands in the way of giving relief on petrol and diesel prices is astonishing,” Mr. Chidambaram said, adding the NDA has no right to comment on the fuel subsidy after ‘profiting several times over through exorbitant taxes and cesses on fuel’. “The people know that UPA gave them relief and the NDA is crushing them through oppressive taxes and cesses,” he said, pointing out that the UPA government’s decision to subsidise fuel prices through borrowings, directly or through oil companies as a surrogate of the Central government, was known to every analyst and lender, and was ‘mentally added’ to the fiscal deficit at the time.