Left parties on Monday opposed any increase in petrol and diesel prices in step with the hike in global oil prices and higher taxes, and asked the government to restructure duties to protect the consumers.
Left parties had an hour-long meeting with Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar to demand a rollback of excise duty increase announced in the Budget, shelving the proposal to raise road cess and creation of price stabilisation fund out of the cess collected on domestic crude oil.
Petrol prices need to be raised by Rs 4.59 a litre, half of it (Rs 2.52) on account of increase in excise duty.
Similarly, diesel prices need to be hiked by Rs 4.97 per litre, including Rs 1.53 due to excise effect. The required increase also includes Rs 0.61 per litre each due to increase in road cess.
"We have asked the government not to increase prices but consider other ways (of containing the impact of global spike)," CPI secretary D Raja told reporters.
Dipankar Mukherjee said the finance minister's statement while presenting the Budget that the duty changes were revenue neutral and would not result in any increase in retail price, was 'false'.
"It is felt the proposed changes in duty structure have actually helped the standalone private refineries, specially Reliance, while hitting the public sector oil companies," he said.
"Import duty reduction has helped the refining sector, but the excise duty changes, applicable after refining, affect adversely the marketing/retail sector managed by the oil PSUs," he said.