The finance ministry on Tuesday ruled out any change the near future in the excise duty on petroleum products.
"At present, there is no proposal under the consideration of the government to make change in the excise duty structure and rates on petroleum products," Minister of State for Finance SS Palanimanickam told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.
In the union budget for 2005-06, the government had halved the customs duty on crude oil from 10 per cent to five per cent and reduced it on petrol and diesel from 15 per cent to 10 per cent, while changing major portion of excise duty on petrol and diesel from ad valorem to specific rates.
Subsequently in June this year, the customs duty on petrol and diesel were further reduced from 10 per cent to 7.5 per cent to provide relief to oil marketing companies from unprecedented spurt in global crude oil prices.
The minister revealed that in the first quarter (April-June) the government had received Rs 121.5 billion as excise collections and Rs 31.5 billion through customs duty on gas, oil and petroleum products.