The Centre should further reduce taxes on fuels, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said on Tuesday.
Addressing a meeting near Attur to celebrate the first anniversary of the DMK coming to power, he said that though many had raised doubts whether the DMK government would be able to reduce fuel taxes, as promised in the party’s election manifesto, it did reduce the tax on petrol by ₹3.
Referring to the recent tax reduction announced by Centre, he said one year after the State reduced its taxes, the Centre reduced its tax on petrol by ₹8 and diesel by ₹6. Whenever the Centre reduced its tax, the State’s tax rates got reduced, and the State taxes on petrol and diesel got reduced by ₹1.5 and ₹1 respectively, he said. Therefore, it was not right to say only the Centre had reduced its taxes on fuel.
₹1,160-crore loss
Mr. Stalin said the State exchequer suffered a revenue loss of ₹1,160 crore when the fuel price was reduced by ₹3 a litre. Though it is called a loss in the administrative language, the Chief Minister said he would like to call it a concession offered to members of the public.
Comparing the fuel prices in 2014 and the current rates, Mr. Stalin said that in May 2014, the total Central taxes on fuel was ₹9.48 and today it was ₹27.90. The Centre had retained ₹19.90 of the increased taxes, even after the recent reduction, he said.
The Centre ensured that the fuel prices did not increase during the Assembly elections in five States and increased the prices only after the elections, he said, adding that the fuel prices had increased by ₹10 in two months and the Centre had cut ₹9.80 out of it. The Centre had to pay the State dues to the tune of ₹21,761 crore and the DMK had been implementing schemes despite this financial crisis, he said.
Poser to Palaniswami
Mr. Stalin wondered what former Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami had done for his native district [Salem] while in power, even as he kept issuing statements against the government each day. He said the Pollachi sexual harassment case, the Thoothukudi police firing, the Kodanad heist and murder case were to be counted as the painful achievements of the previous government.
He said that at the gram sabha meeting held during the Assembly election campaign in Edappadi, he had received over 10,000 applications from job-seekers in the constituency.
Highlighting the benefits of various schemes implemented by his government, the Chief Minister said he had announced projects worth ₹917 crore for Salem during a recent visit and the work on them was in progress. He added that temple land worth ₹2,500 crore had been recovered after the DMK came to power. It was the DMK that gave persons of all castes an opportunity to become temple priests, Mr. Stalin said, adding that it was only the Dravidian model that could take Tamil Nadu ahead on the path of development.
