The Andhra Pradesh government ruled out reducing value-added tax on petrol and diesel on Sunday and also took out an ad in several newspapers clarifying its stand on the issue.
The AP government justified its move by saying that the Centre did not adequately compensate the state government despite collecting ₹3.35 lakh crore as central excise. The ads published by the government came after the opposition parties protested against the state government for not reducing VAT on petrol and diesel.
“Although the central government collected ₹3.35 lakh crore as Central Excise on petrol and diesel, it distributed only ₹19,475 crore as state’s share, which is just 5.80%. The Centre has to distribute 41% of taxes collected to the states,” the Andhra government said in its ad.
