People's Democracy

(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Vol. XXXII

No. 32

August 17 , 2008

 


CITU DEMANDS OUTRIGHT REJECTION OF CHATURVEDI COMMITTEE REPORT


Centre of Indian Trade Unions demands outright rejection of the report of so-called High Powered Chaturvedi Committee on Petroleum Sector, appointed by the prime minister which has given outrageous recommendations for further price rise in petroleum products, based on another notional basis of pricing, which it calls export parity price. CITU reiterates that no notional pricing formula without linkage with the actual cost of production be it �import parity� initiated in 2002 by NDA government, amended thereafter as �trade parity� pricing by Rangarajan Committee in 2006 and now �export parity pricing� recommended by Chaturvedi Committee would be acceptable to the working class of this country, who are toiling under relentless price hike and inflation fuelled by global speculative oil price. CITU demands that pricing of petroleum products should be administered on the basis of actual crude oil basket price (comprising indigenous and imported crude), actual refining cost based on the location and vintage of refineries, marketing cost and a reasonable profit so that the country can get the advantage of its indigenous crude production as well as its surplus refining capacity, irrespective of vagaries of global oil market.

CITU therefore demands that government should immediately reduce the enhanced price of diesel, LPG and petrol in light of the fall in global crude price and should: a) restructure the taxes specially the excise duty; b) impose a flat super profit tax beyond 50 dollar/barrel on all upstream oil companies whether private or public without any discrimination, as suggested by M/s ONGC before the Chaturvedi Committee; c) impose a similar super profit tax on stand alone private refineries like M/s Reliance and Essar on refining margin exceeding eight dollar/barrel.

CITU denounces the discriminatory approach of the committee in dealing with public sector and private sector oil companies in its report. It cautions that the Chaturvedi Committee report, if implemented, apart from imposing unbearable burden on consumers would lead to further financial losses rather than notional under-recoveries to the public sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs), paving the way for private sector oil companies specially M/s Reliance to have a free hand in capturing petroleum retail sector in a free market scenario backed by its size of refineries and the tax concessions it enjoys. CITU calls upon the working class to take lead in mobilising the people to force the government to reject the report lock, stock and barrel.