36 fuel stations in Jamshedpur, 242 in Kolhan remain closed
Jamshedpur, Dec. 21: Thirty-six petrol pumps in Jamshedpur (152 in East Singhbhum) along with 242 in Kolhan division including Chaibasa and Seraikela-Kharsawan remained closed on Tuesday on call of Kolhan Petroleum Dealers Association.
Petroleum dealers staged a day-long strike to demand that the state government reduce VAT on diesel and stop the sale of adulterated fuel in the name of biodiesel.
Most of petrol pumps operating in Steel City remained shut while a few were operating as usual.
As people faced issues and were seen hopping from one petrol pump to another in search of fuel, Jharkhand government incurred a revenue loss of about two crore 87 lakh 98 thousand, according to sources. Over 1,400 petrol pumps of Jharkhand remained closed on Tuesday.
Kolhan Petroleum Dealers Association’s secretary, Kunal Kar said ill effects of petroleum companies pressing for the setting up of fuel stations at random thereby reducing the profitability of fuel pump owners and creating hard times for those who had opened such stations recently.
Kar said that almost all the neighboring states of Jharkhand had reduced the tax on diesel, due to which the sale of diesel in Jharkhand had been affected in a big way resulting in losses for the dealers and the customers.
Diesel sales will increase due to VAT reduction
Joint Secretary of Jharkhand Petroleum Dealers Association, Rajiv Singh said that our demands are same and we urge the government to reduce VAT on diesel by five percent. In view of the rising inflation, the association urged the government to reduce VAT by five percent only on diesel, which will give relief to the people and the revenue of the government will also increase due to more consumption of diesel. Singh said that the association has been demanding this for the last several months but state government has not taken up the issues till date. On Monday, during the winter session, Jharkhand government refused to reduce VAT on diesel.
Kolhan consumes 7.26 lakh kilo litres petrol, 12.10 lakh KL diesel
Rajiv Singh further said that there are 242 petrol pumps in the Kolhan and every day about 7 lakh 26 thousand kilo liters of petrol and 12 lakh 10 thousand kilo liters of diesel is consumed in Kolhan alone. At the current rate, state government gets total revenue of about Rs 17 VAT and Re 1 Cess on petrol, about Rs 18 per liter, while on diesel, about Rs 12 VAT and Re 1 Cess on diesel, a total of Rs 13 revenue is received. Singh informed that state government has suffered revenue loss of about Rs. 2 crore 87 lakh 98 thousand due to the strike.
People of border areas moving to Bihar, Odisha, Bengal for fuel
Joint secretary of the association said that sale in petrol pumps in border areas of Jharkhand has comparatively come down. People of these border areas are moving to Bihar, Bengal and Odisha for diesel resulting in low sale and loss to petrol pump owners and state government is also losing revenue.
Emergency services exempted from strike
Singh further said that emergency services were exempted from the 12-hour strike. Fuel was supplied to fire brigade, ambulances and police administration vehicles. Regarding the future strategy, he said that a decision will be taken in the meeting of the Core Committee of Jharkhand Petroleum Dealers Association.
To make the strike successful, JPDA Vice President Ashok Jha, Joint Secretary Rajiv Singh, Hetram Sharma, Alok Singh, Vice President of Kolhan Petroleum Dealers Association Sanjeev Agarwal, Treasurer Ravi Bhautika, Dilipanand Goswami, Ranjit Bala, Vijay Singh, Shawal Dutta, Surendra Soni, Gauri Shankar Mahanty, Steven Rodriguez, Punit Sethia, Mukesh Agarwal, Abhishek Raj, Ratandeep Singh, Manish Singh and others played vital role.