The price of petrol and diesel will go up by Rs 1.60 and Rs 1.59 per litre, respectively, from Wednesday. This is in line with Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa’s decision to hike the rate of tax on petrol from 32% to 35% and diesel from 21% to 24%.
He had announced this in his March 5 Budget for 2020-21 fiscal. At present, a litre of petrol costs Rs 71.97 and diesel Rs 64.41 in Bengaluru.
The government decided to roll out the hike from Tuesday midnight going into Wednesday, April 1, after briefly considering a postponement in view of the COVID-19 crisis.
Finance Secretary (Budget & Resources) Ekroop Caur confirmed to DH that the hike will be rolled out.
The 3% hike on fuel tax was a key resource mobilisation measure that Yediyurappa announced in his Budget. The hike is expected to fetch the government Rs 1,500 crore.
Yediyurappa had also announced a 6% additional excise duty on Indian Made Liquor (IML), which could help the government mop up Rs 1,200 crore. However, the sale of liquor has been prohibited during the lockdown period. Plus, hiking fuel prices during the lockdown will not hit citizens very hard.