Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said that the consumer issues of fuel prices putting a burden are understood but it is a 'dharma sankat' for her.
"Both states and centre draw revenues from it. So, both states and centre have to think about it," she said at the Indian Women’s Press Corps (IWPC) presser.
She further said, "My duty is to explain it to the people about the fuel taxes. I haven't had the opportunity to discuss fuel taxes with any chief minister so far. I might have to take a call whether the centre can take a proposal to levy GST on fuel closer to the date of the GST Council."
On Budget 2021, she said that the government has ensured to divide the stimulus to understand where it should be going, simultaneously making sure that they utilized the opportunity that the pandemic presented by continuing with reforms.
On Thursday , economists at SBI said that petrol price can go down to Rs 75 a litre across the country if brought under the ambit of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), but there is a lack of political will, which is keeping Indian oil product prices at one of the highest in the world.
Diesel will come at Rs 68 a litre and the revenue loss for the Centre and states will be only Rs 1 lakh crore or 0.4 percent of GDP, according to the calculation by the economists made under the assumption of global crude prices at $60 a barrel and exchange rate at Rs 73 per dollar.
Meanwhile, retail fuel prices in the metros remained unchanged for the sixth straight day on Friday. In the national capital, the price of petrol remained steady at Rs 91.17 per litre and diesel was stable at Rs 81.47 per litre, according to Indian Oil Corporation, the country's largest fuel retailer.
In Mumbai, the petrol price remained unchanged at Rs 97.57 per litre on Friday. The cost of diesel also was the same at Rs 88.60 a litre.
