WOULD THE LPG AND PETRO PRODUCTS EVER BE CHEAPER UNDER THE PRESENT REGIME?

As the elections of the three states viz: Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh and the general elections are coming nearer, the prime minister Narendra Modi and the BJP supremo Amit Shah are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that the BJP wins all the states as well as the centre again and hence the chief ministers of entire twenty states have been fully mobilised on various government achievements of the last four years to further disseminate them to the general masses.

While majorly depending on the union government’s achievements on various fronts like successful foreign policy, free supply of crores of gas connections to the poorer sections of the society under the prime minister’s Ujjwala scheme, electrification of thousands of villages, Swach Bharat Abhiyan housing for the poor, increase in the minimum support prices for providing relief to the farmers, opening of crores of Jan Dhan accounts, relief to the SC/ STs in favorably amending the SC, ST act and various other developmental projects etc, all the state chief ministers have been asked to propagate these achievements in their respective states so as to impress upon the voters to vote for the saffron party ensuring the party’s reversal to power.

But despite all these so called achievements, the non BJP opposition led by the Congress party is trying to capitalise on the issue of unemployment, alleged corruption in the Rafale deal and the massive increase in the prices of petrol, diesal and LPG cylinder resulting in inflation in majority of the essential commodities due to the increase in the cost of transport which further results in the manifold increase in the rates/ prices of construction material thus making the housing sector costlier as well.

The devaluation of the rupee to all time low against the dollar at 70, has also led to the exports becoming extremely costlier adding an added burden on our foreign exchange reserves.

Today the LPG used by crores of the Indian families have become extremely costlier. A single unsubsidised cylinder of LPG today costs  Rs 789 and the rate of the diesal and petrol is all time high at Rs 69 and 79 respectively in the capital of India.

If we compare the rates of the LPG, Petrol and Diesal with the rates during the Congress led NDA tenure in 2011 to 2014 the LPG cylinder costed Rs 550 to the maximum where as the diesal and petrol were at Rs 54 and 67 respectively at the most where as the international rates of the crude oil were much higher (130$ per barrel) to what they are today.

The fact of the matter is the government is not prepared to bring the petro products under the GST to reduce the prices of diesal, petrol and LPG nor is it ready to reduce or withdraw the government taxes on these products which are allegedly about one lakh crore which if reduced or remitted can make all the above three products extremely cheaper, finally bringing down the inflation to a greater extent and reliev8ng the common masses of the added burden of inflation.

If we minutely analyse the increase in the petroleum and LPG prices during the last four years one will come to the conclusion that price hike in the petro products have been phenomenal and beyond control leading to extra and additional burden on the general public in terms of escalation of the costs of essential commodities. What’s your take friends?