By IANS,
Lucknow : Uttar Pradesh’s 4,000-odd petrol pumps will not stock diesel from Monday to protest a 5 percent entry tax imposed from Sunday.
The Uttar Pradesh Petroleum Traders Association Sunday unanimously resolved not to lift their stocks from oil companies – a move that could create a serious diesel crisis across the state.
“We are not proceeding on any strike, but we are simply going to abstain from refilling our diesel stocks unless the state government reverses its order on entry tax,” association president B.N. Shukla told IANS.
“The entry tax system is so lopsided that it would lead to the creation of a dual tax structure in each of the state’s 70 districts,” he said.
While state officials denied any fresh levy in the form of entry tax, traders said that the fact that all oil companies had decided to charge it on them showed that such
a levy was imposed by the state.
Uttar Pradesh’s Principal Secretary (Institutional Finance) D.D. Verma said: “All the confusion has apparently been caused by oil companies. Let them show us the state government’s order through which such a levy was sought to be introduced.
“Entry tax was already incorporated in the Value-Added Tax (VAT), which was introduced in the state in January 2008, and no order had been issued to entitle the oil companies to charge an additional 5 percent over and above that,” he added.