The government is in favour of bringing petroleum products under GST, but is awaiting consensus from the states, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday in the Rajya Sabha.
“As far as the central government is concerned, we are in favour, but we are in the process of building consensus and hope states will agree sooner than later,” Jaitley said, replying to a question by former finance minister and Rajya Sabha member P Chidambaram during Question Hour.
Chidambaram had asked what prevented the Centre from bringing petroleum products under the GST, now that the BJP was in power in 19 states. He sought to know by when the GST Council will decide on the subject.
Jaitley said that as opposed to the UPA government, which had kept petroleum completely out of GST, the NDA has made constitutional provisions to make them part of GST and persuaded states to come under it.
“UPA, while presenting the draft of GST had not included petroleum under GST at all. They knew it would be a deal-breaker between the states and the Centre. We have done that (the inclusion) and await consensus from the states and hope the states agree to a consensus sooner or later,” the finance minister said.
To another question on why the prices of petrol and diesel have not come down despite the fall in global crude oil rates by 49% between May 2014 and October 2017, Jaitley said it was because the UPA-ruled states refused to bring down taxes on these fuels.
“We are equally concerned and we also brought excise duty on petrol and diesel but a large part of taxes on petrol and diesel are state taxes. A number of UPA-ruled states have singularly refused to bring prices down,” Jaitley said.
DH
