Bengal fixes sales tax on petrol and diesel

In addition, the state would collect Rs 1 per litre of the fuels sold as a special cess raised to fund road related infrastructure like flyovers and bridges as well as state highway projects.

The levies would still fetch a tidy sum for the state exchequer, as petrol sales in West Bengal in 2007-08 was around 450 million litres, with Indian Oil Corporation alone selling 180 million litres in the year.

Sales were expected to be steady in 2008-09 and so the state would mop up sround Rs 375 crore.

Diesel sales were much higher at around 1845 million litres and the share of IOC as the leading oil retailing company was around 920 million litres, said oil industry sources.

Sales tax on diesel was therefore expected to fetch more than Rs 700 crore this fiscal, more so as diesel sales were expected to rise.

Revenue from the Rs 1 cess was expected to fetch around Rs 230 crore as the combined sales of the two fuels were expected to rise to at least 2300 million litres this fiscal.

"In view of the bandh, figures for the collection cannot be released today", top sources in the state's finance department told Business Standard.

The Left Front sponsored 12-hour general strike in West Bengal was enforced with such rigour today that even ministers were denied entry into Writers Buidlings, the state government headquarters, by CPI(M) agitators.

As a result of the state's sales tax reduction though, petrol will cost only Rs 2.87p more per litre and diesel Rs 1.62p per litre from June 5.

The West Bengal government reduced the price of a litre of petrol by Rs 2.12 a litre and of diesel by Rs 1.38 a litre by reducing the sales tax on petrol from 25 per cent to 20 per cent and on diesel from 17.5 per cent to 12.5 per cent.

The Trinamul Congress, the state's main opposition party now on a high after successes in the recent panchayat elections, appealed to the electorate to observe a 6 am to 6 pm strike on June 6.