[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by raul

I think people miss the point that we were paying 45-50 bucks a litre when oil was $60-65 a a barrel. Now its $130 and some people are speculating its going to touch $200 soon. The taxes and mechanism we have also cover subsidy for cooking gas, kerosene and diesel, that why petrol prices were never reflective of market rates.

Now with prices per barrel spiraling out of control this whole tax + subsidy structure is becoming unsustainable and petrol will have to be sold at 100-110 or more to maintain some sort of parity. Second compared to western nations we have limited purchasing power so hikes will hit us worst taking a a major portion of our income not only for petrol but everything else that will rise in price with oil rates this high. There is no solution to this, the government cannot manufacture wealth and subsidise fuel, where will it get the money from? It depends on us for revenue so if oil prices keep rising we will eventually have to pay the market rates however high.

For most of the world this is a huge issue as it is in India. The search for alternative energy sources has not really taken off, and oil is running out fast, last I heard is 40-50 years optimistically and with demand surging from fast growing economies like India and China and supplies going short the prices are always going skewed in OPECs favour.

Basically we are toast untill we can find new technology and fuel sources. This is just the beginning and things are going to get worse, the only question is how fast.

First of all, let the government reduce approximate 70% of total price of 1ltr petrol ( if 50rs is the cost of petrol/ltr, 35 goes to government ), to lets say 10%, then see the difference.



OFFTOPIC: Cooking gas subisdy is giving rise to corruption. Our cooking gas cylinder alway sget sold to some one living in our society runnig Wagon R Duo. We, even after paying income tax and high cost of fuel, usually suffer from scarcity of gas cylinders. Those illegal people who are running cars do not have any problem. We have to fight to get 1 gas cyld. The head of the gas agnecy is "Sansad Sabhya". So you know the real problem of layman.

[zenx]

Trust me, we'll all still be driving around the same at 100/- Maybe a little lesser. If public transport actually improves, yes there's a chance things will improve a lot.

[Technocrat]

Trust me, we'll all still be driving around the same at 100/- Maybe a little lesser.

Exactly, every price hike invokes heated debates & people saying that they will shift to bikes cycles etc but everyone continues.

[zenx]

Originally Posted by Technocrat

Exactly, every price hike invokes heated debates & people saying that they will shift to bikes cycles etc but everyone continues.

Of course, i've been planning to take up cycling for completely different reasons anyhow The fuel bill will merely be a catalyst.

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by Technocrat

Exactly, every price hike invokes heated debates & people saying that they will shift to bikes cycles etc but everyone continues.

Every time things were digestable, but not now. From 33-36, 50 was digestable, but now after the limit of 65, I am seriously helpless. Things have changed. AS the diesel prices go up, so does the cost of each and every comodity. So affroding to survive will be very difficult once the prices go up now.

An engine will generally work well if we raise rpm to 4K from 3K, but if keep on raising rpm and keep the engine at the highest possible rpm, then the engine will eat more fuel and all the organs/parts are stressed out to limit.


So now the redline is approaching in case of fuel cost. Initial rise till 50-53rs/ltr of petrol is understood, but its reaching heights now.

[anupmathur]

Cheer up guys! A new era is just round the corner:

[anupmathur]

There are already options that people are trying out. We will very shortly have TD reports from them!




And please note that the Hummer stays '4 wheel drive', .... er 4-leg-drive!

[pgsagar]

I did a lot of searching all these days but I couldn't find that vernacular print media where I read that. I read it a few weeks back when crude was hovering at around $ 88-90 a barrel. It said cost of refined petrol at factory gate of oil PSU in India was around Rs.11/-. If frieght, insurance and 20% profit is added then it may go to Rs.14-15 per litre. Now this Rs.14-15 is before tax. But since it sells for Rs.50/-, the remaining Rs.35/-, as was rightly pointed out by some, goes to government coffers in various forms of taxes. If the numbers that that publication reported were true then we are being fleeced royally by GOI and State Govs. If this is true then it is not taxation but extortion. And the Govt. is acting like Sheriff of Nottingham. Now from this high 35 rupee taxes if you remove Rs.5 or 10 and call it a subsidy of Rs5 or 10, then that's too much. First, they take it to moon and then they reduce it a bit to make it look ok.

Even when oil prices were not hot like they are today, we Indians paid through our noses for a litre of petrol. Some one pointed out, rise in fuel prices in US is high compared to in India. Well, gasoline in US wasn't taxed to glory like it has always been in India, so rise in barrel price just had to be passed on to the consumers in US. But here in India, GOI always collected a hefty amount as tax on every litre of petrol sold; so now that hefty tax is acting as a buffer, i.e cut taxes a little to cushion the price rise. That's what GOI has been doing some for years now, i.e. reducing their excise and customs duties on petrol to cushion it from high rise impact.

[Abhijat]

I can afford to pay the amount if its justified, having said that i also know that no price rise is ever justified

It is time we had good hybrids here likes of Toyota Prius.

In an election year in India the GOI is going to be cautious about price rise on fuel. Whatever the estimates might be i think for the time being the rise will be on the lower side.