VAT on Petrol and diesel increased in AP

Amaravati: YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government has imposed additional VAT on petrol and diesel with effect from Thursday onwards. D Sambasiva Rao, Special Chief Secretary, Revenue (Commercial Taxes -2) department, has issued a GO MS No 19 on Wednesday by increasing the additional burden on the motorists in the state.

The additional burden on the public will be between Rs 0.50 to Rs 0.70 on petrol per litre and below Rs 1 on diesel.

Amending the AP Value Added Tax Act, 2005, in Schedule 4, the rate of tax has increased from 31 per cent to 35.20 per cent for petrol per litre. Likewise, the rate of tax against diesel also increased from 22.25 per cent to 27 per cent per litre.

As on Wednesday, the petrol price is Rs 77.93 and the diesel prices are Rs 71.94 in Amaravati, the state capital.

In fact, the then Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has reduced Rs 2 on each petrol and diesel per litre before the elections. At that time, the petrol prices were on skyrocketing, crossed more than Rs 90 per litre.

After increasing the VAT on both petrol and diesel, the state government is going to get a minimum of Rs 500 cr per annum, according to an estimation from the officials at the Finance Department.

Further, the officials compared that, the petrol and diesel rates in both Telangana and AP would be almost equal with this marginal increase in the prices.