The opposition Congress and BJP hit out at the Odisha government on Sunday for raising the rate of Value Added Tax (VAT) on petrol and diesel.
While VAT on petrol has been raised from 26 per cent to 32 per cent, it was hiked to 28 per cent on diesel. The new price came into effect on Saturday midnight, official sources said.
The price of petrol per litre is up by Rs 3.11, it has gone up by Rs 1.03 per litre in case of diesel, they said.
This is not the proper time to hike the price of fuel when the people are passing through the worst period of their lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is something which can be described as a burden on the people, state Congress president Niranjan Patnaik said.
