Tax now forms 70% of petrol, diesel prices

The Tuesday evening decision of the Government to raise excise duty levels on petrol and diesel by historic high levels has taken up tax component on retail price of auto fuels closer to 70 per cent level.

What this means is that the bulk of the retail price a common man pays to get fuel is tax and if government would not have targeted petrol and diesel to raise revenue every time there is a pressing need for it, the fuel prices in India today would have mirrored retail prices prevailing decades ago

( With inputs from IANS )