[pankajn1702]

Every time I think of upgrading to a Petrol AT from CNG+Petrol MT, there is a God-Sent signal asking me not to.

Infact I feel I should just stick with this bifuel option as petrol is now costing double than CNG which is around Rs 47.xx per kg in Thane. And my running has reduced to 1/3 than what it was in pre-covid era.

On a lighter note, drivers and drunkards are the highest tax payers in our country

[Spaced Out]

Originally Posted by Cessna182

During elections, the sheer magnitude of spending is shocking. LED screens everywhere, new helipads, netas roaming around in swanky choppers for weeks. 8k+ crores for a brand new jet. 20k crores for a new parliament. Money is there with the government but not for the common man anymore.

But this is the outcome of a democracy, so we cannot complain.

Campaign finance is the biggest source of corruption in this country. Why do you think both the Congress and the BJP fought against the Election Commission and the Delhi High Court mandate to disclose foreign donations to political parties.

When they lost, the two parties unanimously passed a law excluding them from the provision of the FCRA Act, retroactively - all the way to 1975!

The Wire: Finance Bill Amends FCRA Again to Condone Illegal Donations to BJP, Congress from Foreign Companies

Times of India: When BJP and Congress were joint beneficiaries of dodgy moves

Originally Posted by RoadMonkey

What a majority of people decide to be important is deemed important, regardless of merit. Vanity projects are allowed, accepted and even celebrated in this country. I don't need to say any more.

Come sir. Which majority in India thinks rebuilding government offices is an acceptable idea? I am no American style Republican but we can certainly downsize government.

I work closely with various government departments at Central and State level. You will be shocked at how many of them have Program Support Units (read: Consultants) to do most of the work. Half of Rajasthan alone runs on KPMG. Jhpiego - a Consulting arm of John Hopkins is currently highly influential in the MoHFW. The list is long...

On the MSP controversy - I am sorry to say but as urban resident we expect government facilities on tap - from water to electricity. I have recently come to know that my own South Delhi housing society, in a pretty posh area, pays off the linesman to connect the colony Diwali lights to the Delhi streetlight grid. We have also enclosed an SDMC park into the colony while getting the SDMC to manage it : )
People in my colony own Panamera, Bentley, Merc ... and then they do this.

Similarly, go to the NDMC community centre in Jor Bagh - see the government facilities there (tennis court / gym) and tell me that there is no elite capture of government services.

[jigar1791@gmail]

Slightly different perspective here -
* The tax paying group (salaried and businessmen, alike) is a super-set of automobile owning group in India. Car ownership @ 1% means about 1.3 cr Indians own a car.
* Of these, assume 65% own a petrol vehicle, count lowers down to 78 Lakhs
*Assuming close to 30 Lakh commercial cars in the country, out of which, about 60% of them own a petrol + CNG combo, count will be 18 Lakhs
*Total set of Indians hit hard by the constant price rise will be 1 Cr, which is not even a % of total national population.


The so called social burden Govt of India has to oblige, by providing mass market public transport to millions of Indians -
* Subsidised state transport/city transport bus systems at nominal rates.
Eg - BEST in Mumbai, takes you anywhere at INR 25/- for travel of > 20 kms. That's not even a 1/e per km.
Our ST buses (MSRTC carries Mumbai Pune in AC Shivshahi at INR 260/- for a 200 km odd journey, translating to an AC travel at 1.3/- a kilometer)

* The Indian Railways - world's biggest social obligator - a system which is designed to carry general public across the length and breadth of the nation. Talk of rise in ticket prices and you see the hadtals/bandhs and what not happening everywhere. Who the hell will transport you in the comforts of AC at prices which are century old?
Eg - Mumbai - Ahmedabad (500 kms) overnight superfast will charge you INR 780/- for 3 AC INR 1150/- for 2 AC. That's 1.5/- and 2.2/- a kilometer. Take the sleeper class, costing you about 480/-, < 1/- a kilometer. Even the top quality, high speed Shatabdi will take about INR 2000/- for Executive Class journey, which easily beats flying hands down. That's 4/- a kilometer.
* It's because of such heavily subsidised passenger travel, IR is unabe to break even (IR expense stands at 97 paisa against a rupee it earns!). Imagine, even a 5% increase in the ticket fare will result in the above ratio to improve.



Reasons I believe the Govt is not capping petrol prices are -
* Govt is trying to fill up coffers of OMC PSUs, more profits mean more dividends by these companies and so on
* Also, looking at the way current automobile ownership trend is in India, we are already short on good quality roads (I know, Govt should spend money here), but hey, imagine if petrol is at INR 50/-, we would look at traffic jams which may seem endless! Yes, our infrastructure should have been there already by now, yet, we are still WIP in this aspect (Mr. Gadkari is taking efforts to work on it)
* Currently, with a negative euphoria around the current economic scenario and heightened border engagements with our neighbours, Govt is looking for more avenues to shore up it's income.

All of the above aspects, I believe, is collectively forcing the Govt to suck the life out of the 1% tax payer + car owner group, and yet, while we do have reasons to complain, we do not have means to combat it (unless we decide to stop using our vehicles altogether).

PS - above are my thoughts, I'm not here to justify the current petrol prices, neither I am advocating the current Govt! These are just perspectives to help us think on why would the Govt be so cruel on us

@Mods - you may pls feel free to take necessary actions on my post if the content seems out of context from the topic

[Babruvahanaaaaa]

Rising fuel prices remind me of an episode in a TV show called It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The characters invest in barrels of gasoline only to sell them when the prices shoot up. I guess that's a lucrative option.

[Jhinchak]

Originally Posted by SnS_12

With low crude prices and after applying Oil companies processing margin and Petrol pump dealer commission the petrol cost should be not more than 35 per liter.

But with the kind of taxes levied by Central and State governments for the infrastructure provided is just

Wonder, how will the government plan to offset their income loss from heavily taxing the highest sold commodity in the world by pushing for electric vehicles in the future.

By heavily taxing the charging stations being set up in the highways. Imagine paying 20-25 rupees per minute for charging. we will end up paying the same amount.

[sgiitk]

I would like fuel to be under GST. Then we may have some rationality. I really fail to understand why this has not been done.

May be states do not want this.

[ZenMaster]

While we talk and cry about petrol on India being one of the costliest, lets also not forget about its quality which is ironically one of the worst.

While I made fun of Porsche for Developing e-fuel in another thread, I think we should be thinking of developing some bio-fuel kind of thing that can be made at home, that the existing engines can run on or atleast can be mixed as an additive with petrol to increase volume while maintaining the combustion properties without affecting the calorific value too much and is alsom not bad for the engine.

Or, maybe we should run diesel engine with some other fuel. (Since ideally diesel engines can run on anything that has similar volatility.)

[Cessna182]

Originally Posted by jigar1791@gmail

Slightly different perspective here -
* The tax paying group (salaried and businessmen, alike) is a super-set of automobile owning group in India. Car ownership @ 1% means about 1.3 cr Indians own a car.
* Of these, assume 65% own a petrol vehicle, count lowers down to 78 Lakhs
*Assuming close to 30 Lakh commercial cars in the country, out of which, about 60% of them own a petrol + CNG combo, count will be 18 Lakhs
*Total set of Indians hit hard by the constant price rise will be 1 Cr, which is not even a % of total national population.

This is not the right explanation at all.

Diesel prices rising means logistics costs rise and it affects everyone. Prices of fruits and vegetables increase. Cost of farming increases as lakhs of farmers rely on diesel gensets. Their disposable incomes decrease.

Also, people riding bikes use petrol. It affects everyone and no amount of mental gymnastics can help to prevent anyone from reaching that conclusion. You could ask your house help if he or she had to pay a few rupee more for the daily commute. When you earn between 10 and 20k per month, it is painful to spend even one extra rupee.

If fattening up the PSUs was the goal, it should make sure that private players like shell can sell at whatever price they want to. As for your argument about reducing cars due to road congestion etc, I don't think the powerful babus of India are strategic enough for making such calls. If that were the case they'd incentivize smaller quadricycles etc as personal transport in cities.

As for your comments about public transport, you actually spend less on a Singapore bus or train to the airport from any part of the city than in Bengaluru. And you can check this using fare calculators. The Singapore transport corporations are government backed and run profitably. Yet we keep cribbing about a few crores "wasted" on public transport. So again, a specious argument. The horrible Mumbai locals are not loss making at all. As for long distance lines, an AC 2 tier seat these days is as expensive as a flight. There's no subsidy there. The normal seats are cheaper, because more than 30 percent of this country lives in abject poverty and more than 90 percent work in the unorganized sector which has very poor wages.

Again, I'd rather see my tax money being used to subsidize a poor guy's travel rather than a private 1 billion USD+ JET for a politician or a 3000 crore made in china statue.

[Kosfactor]

Originally Posted by jigar1791@gmail

*Total set of Indians hit hard by the constant price rise will be 1 Cr, which is not even a % of total national population.

Wrong!

Every Indian who needs to eat will be affected by fuel price rise.

Lets leave eating aside, lets talk cars.

There is a reason why personal mobility in the form of a car is important - it provides long legs to a country`s industrial and economic might. You do not have to take my word for it but, just look at Ford Model -T- and what it did to United States. The easier and cheaper it is for people to get around - massive roads, fast cars, cheap fuel - the faster the economy will grow.

[maddy42]

See a lot of comments on how this affects only those having a car.

Agriculture consumes a tonnne of fuel.

Every farms yearly consumption of diesel is in 6 figures. Diesel being the big culprit as Tractors and Diesel pumpsets need the most to till and irrigate the crop. Also with the growing shortage of labor the demand for petrol is rising by 50% yoy as all small agri equipments are petrol two stroke engines from cutting machines to weeders.

These are all input costs which will be passed on to the consumer and i have not taken transportation costs into account yet.

Maddy

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

There is a reason why personal mobility in the form of a car is important - it provides long legs to a country`s industrial and economic might. You do not have to take my word for it but, just look at Ford Model -T- and what it did to United States. The easier and cheaper it is for people to get around - massive roads, fast cars, cheap fuel - the faster the economy will grow.

Basically, infrastructure. USA developed faster once it developed infrastructure for faster movement of people and goods, same is case with China. There is not even a single developed country which lacks good infrastructure. Lets break it down to cities and all major "metro" cities have good infrastructure. Fast, quality infrastructure is a foundation of growth, something we have missed and in my view wont ever catch up on occident nations.

Am getting mentally prepared for high fuel prices, and with advent of EV, even electricity might be taxed. There is no escaping this now, and with democracy attending only to masses any hopes for revival are left in the dust. In a country where two and three wheelers are exempted from toll, we shouldn't be even debating lower taxes overall. Indirectly the high taxes hits all as cost of transportation goes up.

[Durango Dude]

Nothing but Govt trying to compensate for falling tax receipts due to COVID so literally pegging fuel sky high! It's almost taxed per litre at 100%.

[fiestarry]

Personally, I don't think fuel prices are rising too fast.
I think too much is being made of small increases in the prices of anything, specially if it closes in on a milestone.

[anb]

Originally Posted by fiestarry

Personally, I don't think fuel prices are rising too fast.
I think too much is being made of small increases in the prices of anything, specially if it closes in on a milestone.

What is reason for fuel price increase ? Crude oil prices are down from 150 to less than 50 per barrel and in India, fuel prices are increasing always. We already pay the highest taxes for petrol and diesel in the world.

[Durango Dude]

Like the saying goes "Born Free taxed to death"!