A tale of Oil, Hypocrisy and Activism

With global oil prices reaching all time highs, fuelled by increasing demand from developing economies, a hike in the price of oil was inevitable. The official line was that the oil companies need to be back in the black. After all, a loss making oil PSU could destabilize the country’s economy.

Haha, All of a sudden the government is concerned about loss-making oil companies, when for a greater part of their existence they made losses out of the most lucrative business in the world. Let’s leave the oil PSU’s inefficiency and Jurassic technology out of the discussion. Let’s examine the Tax Structure of Oil. The taxes imposed on Oil are

1. Customs duty on Crude oil imports ~ 5%
2. Excise duty
3. VAT ~25% (Which was supposed to have replaced the existing taxes!)
4. State sales tax
   

All of these taxes contribute heavily to the government’s coffer. And some of it makes its way back to the oil companies in the form of oil bonds and subsidies. Rest goes towards black-cat commandoes and armor-plated Ambassadors. So with the ever increasing crude prices the government stands to collect a bigger and bigger chunk of tax revenues. Of the Rs 5 increase in prices of petrol, Rs 1.5 goes to the government of India. Makes you think about what we are paying for.

In connection to this price hike, a ‘pro-people’ party chose to call a ‘bandh’ in West Bengal in protest against their own administered price-hike. (They are part of the ruling Alliance!). And of course these ‘bandhs’ are for the common people to suffer. So when a minister in the West Bengal government, got stranded on a Train, he promptly arranged for his own transport to Kolkata. Car, police escort - the usual.

However, irate passengers on the train stopped the minister from doing what he does best – fleeing the scene. The argument being that the government who called this ‘bandh’ should get to know how helpless it feels. Though I wonder if they are really alien to day-long sessions of inactivity.

However, the impromptu political activism is definitely something to cheer about! It was poetry in protest!