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| Oil Bleeds |
This refers to 'Indian Oil rakes up Historic Loss'
(ET, Aug 10). Its a Perfect case of - Political paralysis leading to
Petroleum paralysis.With such a staggering loss to both - the Oil
marketing companies (OMC's) as well as the ex-chequer, i think it is
high time, to free petroleum prices.It actually makes little sense to
collect high indirect taxes from the OMC's and then return it to them as
subsidies. Government logic is that -- it is forced to sell petroleum
products below market rate only to protect the common man from
volatility in international crude oil and product prices. But the fact
is that these oil subsidies to OMC's are the taxpayers' money . About 70
per cent of agricultural land is monsoon-dependent. Due to erratic
monsoon, the diesel consumption has surged. An appropriate alternative
would be deregulation of diesel without sacrificing revenues, and
abolish the direct subsidies.
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| The Coal Currency |
This refers to 'Corruption in Coal' (ET, Aug 7). In a
sense, coal has become the new currency of Indian Rajneeti. Earlier,
Mining Mafias entered Politics to safeguard their coal interests, but
now it's the other way. The supply-side constraint on coal created due
to- mushrooming power plants, increased unauthorized extraction of coal
and high tariffs while importing, has led to supply-demand mismatch.
It's high time, Nuclear deal gets operationalized. It would cut down our
dependency on coal, reduce political corruption. And eventually,
increased power availability would boast growth in primary and secondary
sectors, furthur strengthening our GDP.
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