Survey spins rising fuel costs into a positive story

HYDERABAD: Consumers in India, dependent on petrol and diesel for making their world go around, and who have been paying ever increasing price for the fuel that powers their two or four wheelers, can take comfort that the holes petrol and diesel burn in their wallets is helping them stay at the vanguard of the world in fighting climate change.

And stating this is none other than the 2016-17 Economic Survey tabled by the NDA government in the Parliament on Tuesday in the run up to the presentation of General Budget on Wednesday. The price hikes on the two fuels, implemented in tranches of excise duty increases since 2014, ranged from “Rs 15.5 per litre to Rs 22.7 per litre as of December 2016 for branded petrol and from Rs 5.8 per litre to Rs. 19.7 per litre for branded diesel,” the Survey points out. And it helpfully adds that as “international oil prices started declining, India has increased its excise duties” and that “the increase in petrol tax has been over 150 per cent in India.”