Petroleum pricing mismanagement responsible for diesel price hike

14 September, 2012

After petrol hike, now diesel prices have been also raised steeply. Citing the crude prices in international market and rising under-recoveries of oil marketing companies (OMCs), the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs (CCPA) after a meeting at 7 RCR, the Prime Minister's official residence, announced the hike of five rupees per liter in diesel cost.

THOUGH THE government has said that the rising losses of the OMCs on account of subsidized diesel forced it to take such extreme step; experts, however, have a different take. Leading oil expert Narendra Taneja said that the present hike in diesel prices is a result of mismanagement of petroleum pricing policy by the government.

“They (the government) have neglected the petroleum pricing policy, they have mismanaged. They have allowed excessive politics in the management of petroleum pricing policy. So, the result is what it is today. The government finds itself in a situation, where it was left with no other alternative but to increase the prices. So, basically it was the mismanagement on part of government for the last two and half years (which is responsible for today's diesel price hike),” Narendra Taneja told this Citizen Journalist .

Noted food policy analyst Devinder Sharma compared the hike in diesel prices with the policy of taxing poors and supporting the rich. “It (hike in diesel prices) is a policy of taxing poors and supporting the rich,” Sharma told this citizen journalist.

Sharma added that the agriculture sector will also be affected from this fuel prise rise like any other sector, as the irrigation pumps and tractors to plow the farm land run on diesel.