The petroleum products such as diesel and petrol have become an essential part of our lives. Without these products, it is impossible for us to imagine even a day. Recently, the prices of these products are skyrocketing and after nearly two weeks of the rise in the prices of these products by various petroleum company, the price was decreased by “1” Paisa. The rise in the price of diesel and petrol will eventually affect the lives of millions of people living in India. It will paralyze the already-burdened people of India who are working extremely hard to earn square meal a day. It is important to understand that in nearly four years of NDA Government, the price of the petrol has been increased more than 10 times and they are still increasing.
Effect of petrol prices
The price hike will start a chain reaction, which will affect all the major sectors of the Indian economy. Hike in prices will increase transportation cost, which will increase the price of daily used goods. Some of the sectors affected by the rise in price are transportation, textile, construction, automobile, FMCG (for manufacturing as well as transportation), etc. Due to high inflation level, the already burdened banking sector in India is also expected to suffer huge financial loss. The price of daily commodities such as vegetables, fruits, foods, etc., will also increase due to the rise in petrol prices. The middle class will be severally affected as they spend half of their income on food and 1/10 on fuel. We import a major portion of oil from other countries to meet up our needs. So, we have to depend on import of oil and if the price of the crude oil increases in the international market then the price hike is essential for companies to survive.
What can be an alternative solution?
The government of India should stop blaming the rise in the crude price and start thinking to come up with a long-term and sustainable solution. First of all, it should promote the ideas that people should use more of the public transport to travel to routine places such as office, market, etc. When more people will make use of the public transport instead of the private vehicle, the oil consumption will be reduced greatly which will, in fact, impact the prices of the petrol products. Moreover, high capacity transportation system such as metro and local trains should also be promoted in order to reduce the consumption of fuel by the Indian. More and more project should be started to develop alternate sources of energy like solar energy, bio-diesel, etc. Someone said rightly,
“Natural resources are not something we inherit from our forefathers but something we borrow from our children”
All the experts around the world say that petrol is a natural resource and it is extremely limited in quantity. We should use them judiciously so that our future generations can also can it. Apart from that, we should develop other renewable energy projects such as wind, solar, bio-petrol in order to decrease our dependency on the petrol products.
