People's Democracy

Petro and Diesel Price Hike:

CITU Flays Government Hypocrisy

THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions strongly resents the price hike of petrol and diesel at a time when millions of workers are facing loss of jobs and wage cuts because of the global recession. The price hike along with the threat of deregulation of pricing of petroleum products, shows total apathy of the newly elected UPA government to the plight of wage earners who would now be subjected to further price rise of essential commodities because of spiralling impact of this price hike.

CITU rejects the justification of the price hike by the government on the plea of higher global price and subsidies for the following reasons:

i)       Global crude price of $71/barrel (one barrel equivalent to 160 litres) means Rs 21 per litre which constitutes more than 90 per cent of the price of petrol and diesel. The existing and enhanced prices are exorbitantly high because of the heavy taxes imposed on these retail products;

ii)     The statement that the petroleum sector is subsidised is totally frivolous as the inflow in the form of tax revenue from the petroleum sector is approximately three times of outflow in the form of subsidies.

The CITU views government�s concern for the revenue couched in words like �under-recovery�, totally hypocritic when the government recently gave status of Export Oriented Unit (EOU) to a big private domestic refinery, giving windfall gain to the private refiner at the cost of huge revenue loss to the exchequer, because of tax concessions on this account.

The CITU urges upon the government to immediately withdraw the hike and calls upon the working class to unitedly oppose this move of the government.