The Central government’s tax collection on petrol and diesel has jumped by over 300 per cent in the last six years following the frequent and sharp hike in Excise Duty on the two fuels in the past one year, the Lok Sabha was informed on Monday.

The Central government had collected Rs 29,279 crore from Excise Duty on petrol and Rs 42,881 crore on diesel in 2014-15 – the first year of office of the Modi government. The tax collection on petrol and diesel rose to Rs 2.94 lakh crore in the first 10 months of the current financial year (2020-21), according to information furnished by Union Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.

Together with Excise Duty on natural gas, the Central government had collected Rs 74,158 crore in 2014-15, which has gone up to Rs 2.95 lakh crore during the April 2020 to January 2021 period. Mr Thakur said that taxes collected on petrol, diesel and natural gas as a percentage of total revenue had gone up from 5.4 per cent in 2014-15 to 12.2 per cent in this financial year.

Excise Duty on petrol has been raised from Rs 9.48 per litre in 2014 to Rs 32.90 a litre, while the levy on diesel has gone up from Rs 3.56 a litre to Rs 31.80. Taxes – both Central and State (with the Central government’s tax far exceeding that of the levy of State governments) – make up for over 60 per cent of the present retail prices of petrol and diesel across the country.