Mumbai: Although the state finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar has claimed that Maharashtra ranks among the top five states for the highest taxes on petrol and ranks eighth for diesel taxes in the country, according to the Petroleum Planning Analysis Cell (PPAC) of the Centre, the state has the highest taxes on petrol and diesel in the country.
To add fuel to the fire, only Maharashtra has two separate tax rates — one for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and one for the rest of the state. According to the PPAC, which comes under union ministry for petroleum and natural gas, there are two separate tax rates for Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai for petrol (39.12 per cent) and 24.78 per cent for diesel, whereas for the rest of the states, the rates are 38.11 per cent for petrol and 21.89 per cent for diesel.
Of the 29 states and six Union Territories, there are 10 which have the highest state taxes on petrol and diesel. Of the 10 states, four states with the highest rate of state tax are Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ruled – Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.
As per PPAC data, the daily price of petrol in Mumbai, which was Rs 77.87/litre and diesel, which was Rs 63.35/litre on January 1, 2018, began to rise steadily from March 4 onwards. In March, petrol in Mumbai was Rs 80.33/litre and diesel was Rs 66.96/litre. As of Tuesday, petrol was Rs 88.26/litre and diesel at Rs 77.47/litre.
