Sushil Kumar Modi arrives at the Assembly in Patna on Wednesday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi has ruled out the possibility of any rollback of commercial taxes on petroleum products in the state, unlike Goa and Rajasthan.

“In Goa, they are fulfilling their election manifesto and polls are due in Rajasthan next year,” Modi said on Wednesday. He added that the rollback in Rajasthan was marginal.

“Goa is a small state and has other resources like tourism, mines and minerals to compensate the losses,” he said, adding that poorer states like Bihar cannot afford to follow the steps of Goa.

Incidentally, the slash down by the BJP government in Goa has been so large that the VAT was brought down by 11 per cent per litre. Modi said commercial tax on petroleum products contributed a significant amount — more than 25 per cent — in commercial taxes collection.

Bihar imposes a VAT of 24.5 per cent on petrol, while neighbouring Jharkhand charges 20 per cent. It means that for every litre of petrol sold, Rs 13.78 goes to the state government as VAT.

In June last year, the state government had cut VAT on cooking gas by one per cent and on diesel by 0.36 per cent, incurring a loss of about Rs 60 crore a year. However, the state government gains on petrol every time the oil companies hike the prices of oil.

Budget allocation

Modi on Wednesday tabled the outcome and gender budgets for the 2012-13 financial year. Outcome budget aims at bringing to light the physical gains made in various departments after spending the money from plan and non-plan expenditure. In the education department in 2012-13, the government aims to spend Rs 1,783.73 crore in the construction of 22,000 new schools, 80,000 classrooms and on appointing 10,000 teachers. It also intends to spend over Rs 205 crore in giving bicycles to 8,23,900 girl students and another Rs 180 crore for bicycles to 72,500 boy students in schools.

In the gender budget, the government claims that over 22 per cent of the total budget was earmarked for schemes for women in the state under 16 departments. There are 14 schemes running in the state, which are exclusively for women like Mukhyamantri Kanya Vivah Yojana, Mukhyamantri Balika Protsahan Yojana and others.