By IANS,
New Delhi : India’s Economic Survey for 2008-09 tabled in parliament Thursday has called for decontrolling petrol and diesel prices “at the earliest” even as the opposition protested the fuel price hike announced a day earlier.
The government increased petrol and diesel prices by nearly 10 percent Wednesday, citing as a reason the climbing international oil price which has increased the burden on the state-owned oil marketing companies.
The survey said as long as domestic prices remained below the cost of imports, demand would increase, accentuating the negative impact of the terms of trade effect on national income.
According to it, the fall in the global oil price from the peak of $147 last year could be a “golden opportunity to reform the pricing and control system”.
“It says that as the low prices of oil has provided a temporary window for decontrol of petrol and diesel, this window must be utilized at the earliest,” said a government communique.
Besides, the survey said other issues like “open access to power, decontrol of coal also need to be addressed to have a viable long-term solution to our dependence on foreign oil and the debilitating effect of power failure”.