Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, and Steel Dharmendra Pradhan said the petroleum products should be brought under the GST.
In a letter addressed to the finance department, the minister said both Centre and state governments should sit and work together on it.
Interacting with media persons on his brief visit to Raipur, Pradhan said, under SAIL, the Bhilai Steel Plant is one of biggest units and a strategic one as country’s requirement of rail is met by it. There will be future need of steel so production will be hiked as per requirement of the country, he added.
He said his visit is to explore all possibilities in Chhattisgarh as it has both mining and steel sectors.
He assured that he would again visit Raipur and hold interaction with Raipur based both small and big stakeholders of steel sector.
On slashing kerosene quota of the state and CM Bhupesh Baghel’s letter demanding hike in the quota, Pradhan said, “After independence there had been no changes in policy of allocation of Kerosene quota. It had been basically used for fuel and lighting the house. With Prime Minister launching ujjwala scheme by providing LPG connection and Saubhagya scheme to provide power supply to houses, the consumption of kerosene dipped. But even after that quota of Chhattisgarh has not been reduced but the subsidized kerosene quota has been cut.”
Pradhan said, “State government cannot escape from its responsibility and morality to face the people when taking decision to increase tax on petroleum products, instead of finding excuses. All the rates (of petroleum products) are linked with international market. When Centre imposed excise duty, it tells the people the reason behind the move.”
