Dear All,
As we look ahead for a successful year, this day marks the beginning of our much-awaited essay test series. If you are already aware of our topics, then you know they are very intuitive and our strategy and reviews are un-paralled.
We are poised to give the program a distinct push this year as well. Rest assured , the strategy and reviews are only going to be better. This year, after an overview of Mains-2017, we are delighted that our core philosophy has been resonated well with UPSC. The questions are getting analytical and this is what we do best. Pushing your horizon of thinking is what we excel at-and if you think you have written everything that has to be written in an essay-we certainly will surprise you with new perspectives, ideas and examples.
Of course, the last few months and especially the few days before MAINS was extra-ordinarily hectic as we were constantly engaged with our students on how to improve the writing, where to focus and how they performed.
Sometimes, it makes us feel proud to be associated with so many intellectual individuals/students. After all who is Socrates without Plato, who is Plato without Aristotle and who is Aristotle without Alexander. (Socrates Taught Plato, Who Taught Aristotle, Who Taught Alexander).
The true happiness of a teacher lies when the Students outdo the teacher and that is exactly what happened when we discussed with our students about their performance in ESSAY ( MAINS-2017). This little moments of happiness takes away all the pain of the year. It keeps us motivated to outdo ourselves each time.
Inspiration works both ways, Teachers inspire students and in turn get inspired too.We are intellectual individuals and we are constantly devising and innovating new methods to help you score better in this paper.
Due to paucity of time, we are yet to finish the review of this year’s Mains paper, but the work is on and soon you have the the review of this year Mains as well as some reflections on the path to pursue for next year.
A big THANK YOU for believing in us.
Details regarding essay program registration , FAQs, Process etc can be found at UPSCTREE
No matter what the UPSC creed, We are an unrelenting breed.
intellect.redefined
Thank You
UPSCTREE
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.