New Delhi, Nov 7 (TIWN) Consumers expect further relief from the surging price of auto fuels as the government has room for additional excise duty cuts on petrol and diesel without impacting its budgeted revenue from the sector.

Sources said that the government has enough room to cut excise duty on petrol and diesel with an earlier ICICI Securities report suggesting that excise duty could be cut up to Rs 8.5 per litre without impacting the government's target for revenue from the tax on the two fuels this year. The estimate was based on cuts affected from April 1, 2021.  But with seven months of the year already over, higher levels of cuts could be made as increased collections have already been made in the past seven months o f FY22. 

Government on Wednesday announced a Rs 5 per litre reduction in excise duty on petrol and Rs 10 cut in duty on diesel that would impact its revenue by around Rs 45,000 crore in the balance period of FY22. So, the average duty cut is around Rs 7.5 per litre (tax collections also depend on the quantum of sale of petrol and diesel).  Without any duty changes, the government was expected to collect over Rs 4.3 lakh crore from auto fuels. Now with duty cuts, this estimate may fall to a round Rs 3.80 lakh crore for FY22. This is still much higher than the budget estimate of Rs 3.2 lakh crore from excise collections by the Centre during the fiscal.