Bihar CM Nitish Kumar asks Centre to look into rising fuel prices

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday asked the Centre to think about the issue of rising fuel prices and said that the state government is unable to provide relief to people due to the shortage of resources.

Throwing the ball in the Centre’s court, he said that the Centre will surely think about the fuel price hike.

“We had given some relief to people just a few months back. We do not have enough resources so we can say something about the issue immediately. The rise in prices of petrol and diesel is a national issue and the Centre should think about it. Maybe after a few days, the situation will return to normal,” he said, on being asked whether his government would take any initiative to reduce the prices of petrol and diesel in Bihar.

The Chief Minister said that earlier too, when the prices were increasing too much, the Centre took a decision on reducing the taxes, and after that, the states were asked to reduce the taxes too.

“Then many states took the decision to reduce taxes. We too reduced taxes in Bihar,” he added.

The Bihar government had on November 4 last year, reduced its Value Added Tax (VAT) on petrol and diesel, a day after the Centre slashed excise duty on the products in a bid to provide relief to consumers.

Regarding speculation on his plans to join the national politics, Kumar said, “This is my personal yatra to meet and thank people (on Dhanyawad Yatra), don’t give focus on these things (him entering into Centre politics). We are (alliance) working together in government.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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