Delhi Govt removes VAT on petrol, diesel
New Delhi: The Delhi government has waived value added tax on petrol and diesel. With this the price of petrol and diesel in the capital is likely to fall by 67 paise and 22 paise per litre respectively. A few days ago the Centre had announced an increase of Rs4 and Rs2 per litre respectively in petrol and diesel prices.

A.K. Walia, Delhi's finance minister addressing reporters after a Cabinet meeting here on Tuesday said the reduced prices would become effective within a week. Currently, petrol attracts a sales tax of 20 per cent. For diesel, the sales tax stood at 12.5 per cent.

The tax on petrol and diesel is administered through the Delhi VAT Act and, therefore, often termed as VAT even though the benefits of input tax credit are not available in transactions involving diesel and petrol. Walia said that the State would forgo revenue of Rs 102 crore through this decision.

Currently, petrol price in Delhi stands at Rs47.51 per litre and diesel Rs32.47 per litre. With Tuesday's decision, petrol would cost Rs46.84 per litre and diesel Rs32.25 per litre. The Delhi Government's move comes at the behest of the Union Petroleum Minister, Murli Deora.
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Gujarat gets A class contractors to complete dam canal
Gandhinagar: The Gujarat Government has engaged 10 `A' class contractors to complete the remaining 101 km portion of the 458-km-long main canal of the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) to take the Narmada waters to neighbouring Rajasthan. The government said in a release here that will complete the work at the earliest and that the SSP was an unique inter-State project benefiting Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat and all efforts were being made to complete it expeditiously.

The canal had some of the longest siphons over local rivers Banas and Rel. Besides, there were many road and railway crossings involving permission from the Central Government. It also involved additional land acquisition.
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AP best in power sector performance
New Delhi: Andhra Pradesh stands at the top position in power sector performance, followed by Gujarat and Delhi, according to a report prepared by ICRA and Crisil for the 2005-06 performance, prepared for the Power Ministry, was released by the Power Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde said here.

Maharashtra has improved its performance and moved up to eighth position from 12 earlier and West Bengal jumped to fifth from eighth a year ago. Karnataka remained unchanged at the fourth position.

Tamil Nadu slipped from the fifth to tenth position, Chhattisgarh from 10 to 14, Uttar Pradesh from nine to 18 and Haryana from 14 to 19.
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Government to set up 6th Pay Commission soon
New Delhi: The Government would soon take up during the next month the procedural formalities for setting up of the Sixth Pay Commission. The Union Cabinet is likely to consider a proposal for setting up of the commission sometime during the first fortnight of July, informed sources said.
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Telecom ministry wants 3G spectrum to be priced
New Delhi: Soon Trai started the process on 3G mobile spectrum Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran said he was in favour of pricing of the scarce resource.

He said he wants to make it very competitive and does not want people to sit over spectrum.

The Minister, however, did not touch upon how 3G should be priced, leaving the matter to Trai.

He said that the Finance Ministry was also keen that the Government got revenues from 3G services. Maran also said the Government would allow foreign players to enter the 3G market.

However, Sunil Mittal, head of country's largest mobile operator Bharti, said, there was no justification to price 3G spectrum.

Mittal said spectrum is already priced at 10 per cent of revenues, 12 per cent of service tax, apart from other levies, are already there, he said, opposing any separate entry fee for 3G services.
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