Govt revenues from oil to go up marginally next fiscal

The government revenues from the lucrative oil sector will marginally go up next fiscal to Rs 95,392 crore as the slowdown in the world's second-fastest growing economy has seen fuel sales dip during past few months.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, in the Interim Budget for 2009-10 presented to Parliament today, put subsidy for domestic LPG and kerosene at Rs 3,109 crore as against Rs 2,876.43 crore in the current year on a projected increase in sales volume.

The government has kept subsidy support unchanged at Rs 22.58 per 14.2-kg cylinder and 82 paise per litre for kerosene. This, however, is much less than the Rs 77.51 per cylinder revenue loss on selling LPG below cost and Rs 11.70 loss on selling every litre of kerosene through the public distribution system (PDS) and the remainder is met through issuing oil bonds, which are off-budget items.

The Interim Budget projected a Rs 1,857 crore increase in excise duty collections on sale of petrol and diesel as fuel consumption has slowed down to 4 per cent this fiscal and may further dip next year.

The Rs 5.35 a litre excise duty on petrol and Rs 1.60 a litre on diesel would yield Rs 68,822 crore in 2009-10 as against the revised receipt of Rs 68,505 crore projected for the current fiscal.