All the fuel stations observed a half day strike on Tuesday across Ghaziabad to protest against the imposition of fresh VAT on petrol and diesel.
All petrol pumps remained close in the first half of the day, Petroleum Dealers’ Association (PDA) president Jaivir Singh said. The Petroleum Dealers Association (PDA) called a token strike after the UP Government announced an imposition of VAT at Rs2.16 on petrol and Rs1.74 on diesel.
“By imposing extra VAT on petroleum products, petrol has become dearer by Rs6.50 and diesel by Rs4.50 a litre. Due to this, the petrol and diesel would either be smuggled from Delhi or the buyers would drive their vehicles to Delhi to fill their tanks, which they are still doing,” he said.
“The UP Government has been overlooking our problems since long. The UP petrol pump owners are struggling to survive due to such a huge disparity in taxation system. This disparity leads to vehicle owners to go to Delhi and fill their tank from there while we are struggling to meet our minimum expenditures. So we had been requesting the Government to bring the parity in the taxation so that we could also survive,” added the president.
“If our demand would be ignored this time too, we have no option but to go on indefinite strike and would close the pumps for indefinite period,” he added.