Petrol, diesel and power prices to shoot up from April 1

by news
•
March 31, 2016

Bengaluru: With the Chief Minister refusing to budge down to the demand of the opposition of not to go ahead with the proposed hike of sales tax on petrol and diesel, the fuel is going to turn costlier in state from April 1 onwards. While the price of petrol will go up by Rs 1.89 per litre, diesel price will be up by 89 paise per litre from Friday.

In his budget for 2016-17, Siddaramaiah proposed to hike the sales tax on petrol and diesel to make up for the revenue shortfall from various accounts to the tune of Rs 877 crore, claiming that the hike proposed by him has been marginal and that the same will not affect the common man.

Adding that the Central Government had increased the excise duty four times on petrol and diesel even as the crude oil price in the international market saw a dip, the CM said that the BJP’s demand in the state of not hiking the duties look farce because the BJP government in other states have already hiked the sales tax on petrol and diesel.

He also rejected Opposition’s another demand of waiving farm loans stating that the financial health of the state does not permit him as it would burden the state exchequer by at least Rs 10,000 crore.

Power tariff up

The Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) on Wednesday announced revised tariffs across domestic and industrial segments, which will be in force from April 1.

Domestic consumers that consumes about 150 units may have to pay 11 per cent more on their usual monthly bill, ie they would have to pay 40 ps more per unit of energy.

The consumers will pay from Friday, 30 paise more for the first 30 units consumed, 40 paise more between 31 and 100 units and 50 paise more for the next two slabs from 101-200 units and 201 and above. The percentage rise, excluding fixed charges, is between 8 and 11 across slabs.

Fixed charge has also been upped by Rs 5 for the first KW, followed by an increase of another Rs 5 for each additional KW. The overall increase in tariffs for both low tension (LT) and high tension consumers (HT) is about 9 per cent.