Intention is to bring natural gas, aviation fuel under GST: Hardeep Puri

New Delhi [India], January 24 (ANI): Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Puri on Friday said that there is a growing consensus to bring natural gas under the ambit of GST, but stopped short of hinting at a timeline.
"LPG gas is already 100 per cent saturated," he said, referring to LPG gas connections and the success of PM Ujjwala scheme.
On the matter of GST on LPG, the government maintained that it was under the GST since the beginning.
"LPG is under the ambit of GST since the beginning," Petroleum and Natural Gas Secretary Pankaj Jain said, who was also present during the press conference.
Commercial LPG cylinder attracts 18 per cent GST and domestic attracts 5 per cent.
Ujjwala gas currently sells at Rs 503 per unit, and non-Ujjwala at Rs 803 per unit in Delhi.
The minister, responding to a reporter's question, asserted that aviation turbine fuel will also be taken up for consideration under the GST.
"Our sense out of the last GST meeting was that ATF (aviation turbine fuel) is likely to come on soon under GST but bringing Natural gas is also on the cards," the minister said.
"There were a large number of states which earlier had reservations like Gujarat, Maharashtra, AP, but they are now more or less seeing the benefits of that. I don't want to put a timeline, because its not my field. I am the line ministry, and the taxation issue falls under the finance ministry and GST council," said the minister. "If you ask me, I would say sooner than later (it will happen)."
There have been discussions of bringing petrol and diesel under the GST regime, but several states, from time to time, have opposed this idea. Petroleum products are currently not part of the GST framework.
Moving on to biofuel blending with petrol, Minister Puri said that 20 per cent blending of ethanol with petrol will be completed next month.
The government has been ambitious of attaining 20 per cent ethanol-blended petrol by 2024-25 financial year and 30 per cent by 2029-30. The government has advanced the target of E20 fuel from 2030 to 2025.
E20 blending in petrol was introduced by the Centre to reduce the country's oil import cost, energy security, lower carbon emissions and better air quality.
India, however, has no plans to mandate the blending of ethanol with diesel. The issue of blending ethanol with diesel is still at an experimental stage. (ANI)