More than half of the Rs 47.43 a litre retail price of petrol in Delhi is made up of taxes, after Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee raised excise and customs duty on auto fuels in the Budget 2010-11.

Mr. Mukherjee last month raised excise duty on petrol and diesel by Re. 1 per litre and import duty from 2.5 per cent to 7.5 per cent, resulting in a 12.7 per cent increase in tax component in the retail selling price.

Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada informed Rajya Sabha that Central and State taxes make up for Rs. 24.41 or 51.5 per cent of the retail selling price of Rs. 47.43 a litre of petrol in the national capital.

Prior to the February 26 proposal, customs and excise duties and state taxes totalled to Rs. 21.65 in the retail selling price of Rs. 44.72 per litre.

In case of diesel, taxes comprise Rs. 10.73 or 30.25 per cent of Rs. 35.47 a litre retail selling price in Delhi.

Earlier, one-fourth (Rs. 8.11) was the tax component in retail price of Rs. 32.92 per litre.

The Budget proposals led to Rs. 2.71 a litre increase in petrol prices and Rs. 2.55 per litre hike in diesel rates.

Mr. Prasada said customs duty contributed Rs. 1.73 in the retail price of petrol, excise duty Rs. 14.78 and State taxes Rs 7.90. In case of diesel, Rs. 1.80 was because of import duty, Rs. 4.74 due to excise and Rs. 4.19 resulting from State taxes.

Mr. Prasada said state-owned Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum suffered Rs. 29,353 crore revenue loss on the sale of domestic LPG and kerosene during April-December period of the current fiscal.

Of this, Finance Ministry has confirmed a budgetary support of Rs. 12,000 crore as the share of the Government for meeting the under-recoveries on cooking fuel sales for the year 2009-10, he said.

Besides the Rs. 17,353 crore uncovered portion of the first three quarters, about Rs. 10,000-11,000 crore revenue loss incurred during the January-March quarter too remained uncovered.