NEW DELHI (Reuters), India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman declared Saturday that taxes would be reduced on diesel and petrol in order to reduce inflation and lower the price of key items.

She stated in several tweets that petrol’s excise duty was cut by 8 rupees ($0.1028)/litre and diesel by 6 rupees/litre.

She said that the government will take an estimated 1 trillion Indian rupees hit on annual revenues as a result of the move and urged the states to do the same.

At the moment, one litre petrol is priced at 105.41 Rs., and diesel costs at 96.67 Rupees in New Delhi.

Sitharaman declared that “Prime Minister Narendra Modi had specifically asked all the arms of government to work with sensitivity, give relief to the poor man”,

In a new welfare program for women living below the poverty level, the government will give 200 rupees per gas-cylinder subsidy to 90 million beneficiaries.

According to her, the annual revenue impact of the subsidy is close to 61 trillion Indian rupees.

Recent moves are likely to create fiscal worries and increase doubts regarding government’s ability meet the 6.4% deficit target for 2022-22-23.

($1 = 77.8500 Indian dollars)