Petrol and diesel prices will not be cut as Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman ignored calls for a reduction in excise duty rates to help bring down prices from historic high levels.
Instead, her Budget for the 2021-22 fiscal tweaked excise duty structure to accommodate an agriculture infrastructure development cess, whose accruals would not be shared with the states.
Besides the tweak, the Budget proposed monetisation of oil and gas pipelines of gas utility GAIL and oil refiners Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL).
Ujjwala scheme of providing free cooking gas to poor women will be extended to 1 crore more beneficiaries.
