Consumers resent Petroleum Minister's New Year gift

Consumers resent Petroleum Minister's New Year gift
DEV CHATTERJEE

JANUARY 6: It was the New Year gift from petroleum companies to the citizens of Mumbai which no one welcomed. A surprise hike in petrol and diesel prices -- seventh in the last 22 months -- by 46 paise per litre and 60 paise per litre respectively to pay for new environment-friendly fuel.

A clueless minister and the monopoly of oil companies blame the Mumbai High Court for the hike. Oil companies complain that they have invested nearly 1,500 crore in new refining technologies which must be recovered. Ironically,for citizens, the hike has come at a time when Petroleum Minister Ram Naik has announced a liberal tax exemption on raw fuel to multinational power company Enron.

However, calculations done by Newsline, reveal that the oil companies (Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum) will gain Rs 41.76 crore per annum from Mumbai which makes the metropolis the costliest city in fuel prices in the country at Rs 31.73 per litre for petrol and diesel at Rs 20.67 per litre (See chart). Oil company officials say Mumbai consumes about 30,000 kilolitres of petrol and 35,000 kilolitres of diesel a month which will, in turn, fetch a yearly revenue of Rs 16.56 and Rs 25.20 crore respectively from this year onwards.

``The hike in petrol and diesel are the most exploited methods by both state and union governments to pay for mounting deficit. If the government was so keen to stop pollution, they should have stopped lakhs of outdated 2-cylinder vehicles now plying on Mumbai roads,'' says Mayur Shah, a city businessman. ``Petrol and diesel prices were raised to pay for Mumbaiflyovers, and then to pay for oil pool deficit and now for green fuel... there should be an end to it.''

R Srikumar of IOC defends the hike: ``Worldover, consumers have to pay for clean and green fuel. We have made investments of over Rs 1,500 crore in the state-of-the-art technology to reduce benzene and sulphur content in petrol and diesel. We had no option but to raise prices.''

Says M R Pai, noted consumer activist, ``This unsystematic and unpredictable change in prices shows that the government has no clear cut policies. This kind of sudden change creates confusion in the market. What's bad is that the budget is still to come which will further increase fuel prices.''

Incidentally, the prices are not rolled back when international crude oil prices cool down. ``Mumbai needs a Member of Parliament (MP) like Mamata Bannerjee, who can fight for people instead of Ram Naik who is bent on increasing prices,'' says housewife Sangita Mehta. ``If oil companies are so keen that Mumbai should get the clean air first then they should close down the two oil refineries in Chembur which are polluting air to meet the energy demands. In fact, Mumbai not only refines oil for rest of the country but even pays for it,'' she adds.