E-mail campaign seeking ‘no petrol day’ deeply flawed

Among the many plausible but factually flawed e-mails that are constantly doing the rounds, one that has somehow gained popularity claims that petrol prices in India are several times those in Malaysia or neighbouring Pakistan; and the government is in collusion with private producers to keep the prices high.

Among other things, it claims that petrol prices are just Rs18 per litre in Pakistan, while they are Rs65 per litre in India. This, it says, is pushing up the cost of transport, and consequently fuelling inflation.

It asks the public to observe 14 February as a no-petrol day, when people should refrain from buying the fuel. This, it says, would leave the ''oil companies'' with huge stockpiles and cause them massive losses. Rather crudely, it calls this 'Stick it up their behind' day. Inevitably, it ends by asking readers to forward the mail to as many people as possible.

In fact, apart from being crudely written, the e-mail's logic is so flawed that it would only take in the gullible, and is hardly worth rebutting. Among other things, it fails to specify what part of the oil industry is making the alleged windfall gains from high prices. It is a frequently documented fact that the oil marketing companies are running up huge losses because of heavily subsidised sale of fuels – particularly diesel, kerosene, and cooking gas (LPG) – in order to curb inflation; and the government is hard put to it to make up these losses by the state-owned retailers.

Further, the e-mail doesn't even have its facts straight. A little research by this domain-b correspondent shows that petrol prices in Pakistan are ruling at over Pakistani Rs78 a litre, which would bring them more or less on par with Indian prices.

And tellingly, other fuels like diesel and kerosene cost about the same as petrol (over Rs73 a litre) over there, as there are no heavy subsidies on them as in India. And in Pakistan, as in India, the government is battling pressure to raise prices in line with rising international crude prices in order to appease public sentiment.

It is of course a fact that petrol prices in India are among the highest in the world. But this is due to high taxes, particularly at the state level, rather than any deep and dark collusion between the government and oil producers. Some states like Maharashtra charge around 35 per cent as sales tax on various fuels, including air turbine (jet) fuel. Frequent pleas by the union government to reduce this tax have fallen on deaf ears.

It is thus clear that the e-mail is politically motivated, and all right-thinking people should immediately hit the 'delete' button on it.