Petrol, diesel prices slashed, LPG subsidies: 5 big announcements by FM

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday made several big-ticket announcements to help relieve the common man of the burden of inflation and rising prices. Sitharaman said prime minister Narendra Modi’s office had ‘specifically asked all arms of the government to work with sensitivity and give relief to the common man’. Among the major concessions were a reduction in central excise duty of petrol and diesel and subsidies for LPG cylinders. 

> Prices of petrol and diesel would be slashed by ₹9.5 per litre and ₹7 per litre after the centre reduces excise duties by ₹8 and ₹6, respectively. This will affect revenue by about ₹1 lakh crore per year, the finance minister said.

> The centre will provide subsidy on LPG cylinders – ₹200 per cylinder – to around nine crore beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana scheme, subject to a maximum of 12 cylinders per year. This will have a revenue implication of around ₹6,100 crore a year, she said.

> In addition to the fertilizer subsidy of ₹1.05 lakh crore in the budget, an additional amount of ₹1.10 lakh crore will be provided to further aid India’s farmers.

> The government is recalibrating customs duty on raw materials and intermediaries for the iron and steel industries to help reduce their prices. Import duty on some raw materials needed for manufacture of steel will be reduced and an export duty on some steel products will be levied.

> Measures are being taken up to improve the availability of cement and through better logistics to reduce the cost of cement.