Former Union Minister Yashwant, founder of Atal Vichar Manch, said that Years ago a major reform was undertaken in the petroleum sector of the country was to take the government out completely from deciding petroleum product prices like diesel and petrol and give this authority to the petroleum marketing companies. 

When  Vajpayee was the prime minister of India, the government of India decided to deregulate the prices of petroleum products with effect from first April 2002 and pass on the responsibility to fix petroleum product prices to the oil marketing companies. They were supposed to fix petroleum product prices on the basis of the price of crude oil in the international market, if necessary even on a daily basis. This step was taken in order to remove petroleum product pricing from the realm of politics and to place it firmly in the realm of pure economics. 

Unfortunately this practice has now been given up completely and petroleum product prices are being fixed by the government of the day on political considerations and not by the petroleum companies even in the public sector  a like the Indian Oil Corporation, the Bharat Petroleum Corporation and the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation which have not used this freedom since late 2021. 

Today petroleum crude prices are down to 74 US dollars per barrel but the Government of India continues to rob the consumers by not reducing petrol and diesel prices. It is making a profit of lakhs of crores rupees through this avenue alone. In other words, the consumers of petrol and diesel are being robbed by the government on a daily basis.

Atal Vichar Manch condemns this attitude of the government and demands that petroleum product prices be reduced at least by rupees 3 per litre immediately to help the consumers. 

Profiteering by the government must stop.