Chennai: Asking the Tamil Nadu Government to take a cue from Maharashtra and Gujarat, DMK working president M. K. Stalin on Wednesday demanded that the taxes on petroleum products be reduced to benefit the masses.
Stalin said the state government should reduce the percentage of Value Added Tax (VAT) on petroleum products to reduce the burden of people and pointed out that Maharashtra and Gujarat have already done it.
As chorus grew on petroleum products getting costlier everyday ever since the Centre began revising the rates on a daily basis, the Union Government had last week wrote to state governments to reduce the VAT on such products to give relief to people.
Stalin said daily revision of prices of petrol and diesel due to the Centre’s dynamic pricing policy has proved to be a huge burden, especially for the poor and middle class sections.
“People are struggling hard due to the oppressive taxation on petrol and diesel which has led to prices of petrol to hover around Rs 70.96 and diesel at Rs 60.04 (in Chennai),” Stalin, the leader of Opposition, said, adding that it was the government’s duty to ease people’s pain.
“I insist this government to follow the actions initiated by Gujarat and Maharashtra and transfer the benefit to people by reducing the taxes,” Stalin said.
