I am surprised that there is hue and cry over price reduction of Petroleum products. Prices of Petroleum product is supposed to increased or decreased without prior notice. Earlier we were used to increase in the midnight announcement, in the same fashion the prices used to be cut in a midnight announcement.

Now that petroleum companies have incurred huge losses during the 6 months period when the prices flared upto 147 $, it is definitely to recover the losses. So it is ok if the govt reduces the prices in Jan 2009 too. But these information cannot be made public at all.

The reason being when there is a reduction of price, the petrol bunk owners loose heavily. When they come to know that there is bound to be reduction in price that too Rs 5 in petrol per litre and Rs 2 in diesel, it is going to wreck havoc. Dealers may not stock up.

Another factor is that why are the oil companies not monitoring the stock levels on line everyday. It would be better to reimburse whenever there is reduction and debit them when there is a price increase. This would be the right way to administer such a sensitive product. The systems are still not streamlined in the oil industry in terms of pricing. There is differential pricing in states and even within the state, which is real silly and defies logic. Petroleum price can be made uniform throughout India. Why should consumer pay hardly 42 bucks in Delhi or Goa and pay nearly 57 in Blore or Chennai.

I think the petroleum minister should be definitely taken to task for announcing that price of petroleum will be decreased after Dec 24. BJP is right in claiming that the minister has violated the election code. When ATF prices have already been cut about 30% there is no reason why other petroleum prices should be cut. The price cut will kick start the economy to a large extent.