murli deora

One would think that for the amount of money that the Ambani brothers have they’d at least be happy. We’re talking about two men who are annually listed among the top ten richest people in the world.Yet every single time one brother gets a slight advantage; the other one simply can’t wait to ruin the other’s happiness. This sibling rivalry has unfortunately turned out into one big ego brawl between Mukesh and Anil Ambani.

RIL’s loss in the Bombay High Court regarding the sale of gas from the KG Basin to RNRL was expected to stay that way. But the elder Ambani has dragged the matter to the Supreme Court. The matter came up for hearing today and judging by the way this is turning out, Corporate India is set to witness a no holds barred street fight between the elder Mukesh and the younger Ambani.

Six months ago the government made a decision to cut fuel prices. A litre of petrol was cheaper by five rupees. Around this time I overheard a conversation, one man was saying this to another in his local vernacular “Whenever they (the government) want they raise fuel prices, whenever they want they lower it. Once the election is over they’ll not hesitate to hike the cost again...”

That man sure got it right, Murli Deora has not hesitated to hike the price of fuel. A cross the board hike of petrol by Four rupees a litre and diesel by Two rupees.

A crisis with major implications has been averted for now. All it took was three days for employees of Public Sector Oil Companies to be heard. In 72 hours India’s petrol pumps all across the country ran dry and it will take the next three days for them to be full of petrol again. It’s been a major workers strike, one that should have been sensed by the Petroleum Ministry headed by Murli Deora for quite some time. Unfortunately, prevailing deaf ears by the Ministry has led to average consumers in need of fuel paying the price …….yet again.

Some might say that the strike itself was warranted, clearly it wasn’t. There was a legitimate demand being made by oil company workers-the age old problem of a salary hike.

The battle between the OPEC oil producing nations and the rest of the world is an ongoing one. The powerful Middle Eastern oil rich countries supply nearly half of the world’s crude oil requirements. For a country like India which imports most of its oil to fuel the needs of its ever growing population, every move made by the OPEC is watched keenly. OPEC does not directly control the price of oil but it controls the amount of oil supplied to the world. Thus by simply balancing the classic demand-supply equation, OPEC is in a pretty good position.

It’s been a long time coming and it’s finally happened. The Indian Government has decided to cut fuel prices . Effective from December Sixth a litre of Petrol will cost five rupees lesser than before while Diesel will be two rupees cheaper. As the price of crude oil worldwide takes a tumble and puts the world’s leading oil producers in the form of the OPEC countries in a tizzy, the rest of the world can take it easy for the short term. In India the decision to cut fuel prices is just as much a political decision as an economic one.