Wednesday, April 20 2005 17:07 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Communist Party of India Marxist (CPM) today (Apr 20, 2005) demanded a downward revision in the prices of petrol and diesel asking the Government to restructure the duty on petroleum products in order to stabilise the prices and reduce the burden on the common man.

Quoting official figures, party leaders in Parliament Nilotpal Basu and Basudeb Acharia said that the Government had reduced excise but on the other hand increased other duties to raise about Rs 3000 crore worth of revenue.

"What the Finance Ministry has done is that whatever it has given on one hand, it has taken away from the other," Basu said and demanded that Government "should make a downward revision of excise duties" on petroleum products.

He said that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Gas has also recommended that excise duties on petro-products should be so structured that the additional revenue of Rs 3000 crore was "neutralised" so that the Budget Statement on revenue neutrality was adhered to.

Basu said that the Committee has expressed apprehension that the added burden on the excise front would also be passed on to the customer in the name of exorbitant rise in global prices.

Acharia said that the Committee's recommendations implied that the demand had full support of all parties in the parliamentary body.

"There are mechanisms within the system to largely mitigate the heavy burden on the common people. But these mechanisms are never availed of by the Government," Basu said.