No Action To Control Domestic Fuel Prices

Srinivas Kamat

This BJP government is utterly insensitive to citizen's problems, their interest and well-being. This is being said in the context of the comments made recently by the BJP spokesperson, Nalin Kohli on the spiraling rise in prices of petrol and diesel that we have been seeing the last few days. The hike could be because of international oil prices and the deprecating Rupee, but to say that the hikes are in the interest of the economy and is beneficial to the Centre and the States since their revenues increase it is forgotten that oil is a commodity of daily necessity for the common man and it is his purchase that gets the government its revenue. 

With rising prices all around him starting with food, basic necessities in which petrol figures, his back is getting broken time and again with almost the daily increases of fuel prices. Where the government should have been sensitive to the plight of the common man and looked at methods of reducing his burden, there seems to be a certain amount of glee in claiming that the government stands to gain from the rising prices. 

Sometime back there was talk that the Centre would reduce the Excise Duty on petroleum products and maybe even Customs duty and in turn persuade the States to reduce their Sales Tax, since petrol and diesel happen to be the highest taxed items. This would have reduced the price then by about Rs 5 per litre which today maybe would be Rs 7. 

However from Nalin Kohli's statement one would believe that forget any reduction in taxes and duties, this government seems to be cheering the increase in fuel prices and waving it along higher and higher. The problem is that BJP functionaries and spokespersons rarely apply their mind in any great detail to any issue. Their tendency is to look for the sound byte and come up with off-the-cuff responses which takes the easiest position to justify the event or action on hand. This is surely irresponsible and callous on the part of this government which has forgotten or plainly put does not see the point that governments need also to be benevolent.