The increase in excise duty collections in the first four months of this fiscal is three times the repayment liability of the legacy oil bonds in the full fiscal, official data showed.

Excise duty collections rose to more than Rs 1 lakh crore in April to July from Rs 67,895 crore a year ago — and the rise of Rs 32,492 crore is three times the Rs 10,000-crore liability that the government has in the full year towards repayment of oil bonds that were issued by the previous Congress-led UPA government to subsidise fuel.

First, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and then oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri had blamed the oil bonds for limiting fiscal space to give relief to people from fuel prices trading at near record high.

Sitharaman had last month ruled out a cut in excise duty on petrol and diesel to ease prices, saying payments in lieu of past subsidised fuel pose limitations. She put the total liability that the BJP government has to service at Rs 1.3 lakh crore.

On September 2 — a day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on the government for raising cooking gas prices — Puri put the total liability at over Rs 1.5 lakh crore.

“In ‘India’s Lost Decade’ known for rampant impunity & policy paralysis, UPA Govt saddled future govts with Oil Bonds. More than Rs 1.5 lakh cr of these remain to be repaid, thus tying up crucial resources, limiting fiscal space & restricting financial freedom of OMCs,” he had tweeted.

After the introduction of the GST regime, excise duty is levied only on petrol, diesel, ATF and natural gas. Barring these products, all other goods and services are under the GST regime.

The bulk of excise duty collection is from the levy on petrol and diesel and with sales picking up with a rebounding economy, the incremental collections in the current year may be over Rs 1 lakh crore when compared with the previous year, industry sources said.

In all, the UPA government had issued Rs 1.34 lakh crore worth of bonds (equivalent to a sovereign commitment to pay in future) to state-owned oil companies to compensate them for selling fuel such as cooking gas LPG, kerosene and diesel at rates below cost. Of this, Rs 10,000 crore is due to be repaid in the current fiscal, according to the finance ministry.