The Hindu Business Line : We may need fuel-for-work programmes soon

ABOUT a week ago, there was a heartening line in newspapers that there would be no hike in petrol, diesel prices for a fortnight. End of October was a Sunday, and Aiyar could not get "full opportunity to talk to everybody" about raising prices, and so oil companies were told to put on hold any plans for price increase.

People seemed to be relaxed because, within a fortnight, Deepavali would have come and gone, and crackers too, long dead. But around the same time, at the beginning of November, Manmohan decided to ask his colleagues to get down to business.

A good jolt, that is, because one thought they were all supposed to be doing just that. PM is believed to have set the cat among the pigeons, or more appropriately, thrown crackers at the dozing, by telling his mantris to get cracking and deliver.

And there has been quick action at least on one front, viz. price of petroleum products. So, what was to happen in mid-November hit us about ten days in advance like a Deepavali flowerpot that burst pre-emptively. If prices are pinching enough, there is also some salt to rub on, in the form of visuals that showed a smiling Minister, happy, perhaps, at get cracking and giving everybody the shocks.

This is not the first hike; nor is this the first noise in protest. Strangely, partners of the government too are making the right people-friendly noises that have the effect of ephemeral balm, even if their sympathies may be hollow. That apart, Sunday newspapers had a report datelined Chidambaram citing the FM, Chidambaram, defending the latest petroleum products price hike as "inevitable."

According to the FM, the government had earlier cut Excise and Customs levies twice for the petroleum products to avoid the price hike, even if it meant a `revenue loss of Rs. 4,400 crores'.

"But now it has become inevitable" to push the price up "not with happiness, but out of necessity." PC promised of a review if crude prices fell, but that's a big if. "It is only with deep regret that the Centre has increased the prices of petroleum products, necessitated by the steep rise in the crude prices in the international market," he assuaged, and one only wished regrets translated as cheaper fuel prices.

The FM has been "praying everyday that crude prices should ease", and it seems he put up his entreaties to the dancing Nataraja in his namesake temple town. It may, however, remain a rahasya as to how much money the government makes extra in the form of ad valorem taxes on fuel sold at the new higher price.

In the absence of such a disclosure, there is no difference between profiteering and running the petrol politics.

The Minister has stated what perhaps we didn't know all along: that the oil producing countries were not supplying the products free of cost or at a discount. Government can't give us any concession, because now they want money for programmes such as `food-for-work' and `minimum job guarantee', which demand Rs 12,000 crore "more than what the earlier Government allotted."

In Chidambaram, PC announced that "a special education loan mela" for students of professional courses is to be held around the middle of this month.

As a hands-on Minister, he has asked the banks "to send the final list of students, who had been given education loan," directly to him by November 19.

If, as Aiyar has cautioned, prices keep moving up every few weeks, we may have to look forward to the government to launch a fuel-for-work programme too. To console us, PC would definitely come, if we prayed hard enough! And, in all probability, he may announce "a special fuel loan mela" for those with dried up fuel tanks. However, I wonder how bulky the stationery would be if banks were to send the final list of such borrowers directly to PC.

E&OE@TheHindu.co.in

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