The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Rationalise taxes to bring down fuel prices: Deepankar Mukherjee

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 02, 2010
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Rationalise taxes to bring down fuel prices: Deepankar Mukherjee

Special Correspondent

Centre's justification of hike described as ‘deceptive and misleading'

— Photo: G.P. Sampath Kumar

Making a point:The former MP Dipankar Mukherjee delivering a lecture in Bangalore on Sunday.

Bangalore: The former MP and leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Deepankar Mukherjee, on Sunday described as “deceptive and misleading” the Centre's justification of hike in fuel prices and sought rationalisation of taxes to reduce the prices.

Delivering a lecture on “Petro products price hike – Deora's gospel of untruth” here, Mr. Mukherjee said 51 per cent of the total cost of petrol was taxes. The artificial factors taken into account for fixing prices led to inflation and “international prices have nothing to do with the hike in prices of petroleum products in the country”. The United Progressive Alliance Government and its leadership were responsible for the hike in fuel prices. They spoke in favour of “aam aadmi” (common man) but adopted policies favouring “khas aadmi” (privileged man).

Mr. Mukherjee accused the Centre of trying to change policies in favour of some oil companies in the country. Companies such as Oil and Natural Gas Commission and Indian Oil Corporation had been earning huge profits. The country was self-sufficient in oil refining and was producing more than the domestic requirements. In 2009-10 (April-December), it exported 28 million tonnes of petroleum products as against the import of 10 million tonnes, he said.

Till nationalisation of foreign companies such as Burma Shell, Caltex, and Esso, prices of petroleum products were fixed based on international prices.

In 1976, import pricing system was discontinued and administrative pricing mechanism (APM) was introduced with the increase in domestic refining capacity. As per APM, the actual cost of crude and refining cost were assessed and a reasonable profit margin was ensured to the companies before fixing the prices. In 2002, APM was stopped and import pricing system was reintroduced on the pretext that oil marketing companies had been incurring huge losses, which was not true, he said.

The Union Government increased the prices of petroleum products many times in the past. The hike in fuel prices had affected the common man because minimum wages remained same or declined in some sectors, Mr. Mukherjee said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka

News Update

Stories in this Section