Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas and Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri reiterated here on Sunday that some States, including Kerala, were responsible for not bringing the petrol and diesel prices down.
Addressing the media, Mr. Puri said that the Union government had slashed the central excise duty two times in the last two years. Although the people in Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)-ruled States had benefited from that as the State governments too reduced their taxes, some States did not allow the people to enjoy those benefits, he said.
“I haven’t come here to blame anyone on petrol prices. The Central government, at a time when it was feeding 80 crore people with three meals a day, still brought the excise duty down. Blame it on those States which did allow the prices to come down by reducing their taxes,” he said.
Mr. Puri said that the proposed disinvestment of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) was not on the cards.
The Petroleum Minister said that although the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war had affected countries globally, India’s import of oil from Russia has increased considerably since February 2022. Russia has become the largest supplier of oil to India, and other suppliers have been forced to offer discounts because of Russia. “Our responsibility is to our consumers. We will buy from anyone,” he said.
Mr. Puri said that India would not have to wait until 2047 to become a developed country. “When Narendra Modi assumed power in 2014, India was the 10th largest economy in the world. We have already jumped to the fifth place. In the next few months, we will become the fourth biggest economy. Our economy is growing at a rate of 7.7 %” he said, adding that India was aiming at becoming a 10 trillion dollar economy by 2030.
Mr. Puri said that though the people in Kerala were getting a lot of benefits from the Central government, many were not aware where those benefits were coming from.
