Response to Facebook Note by my Friend Girish Varma
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Girish and Vatsil had some interesting comments on the recent fuel price hike in India, which has created a lot of tension between the Govt. and the people

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Here is the transcript of a discussion i had with my friend, arun regarding my previous post on fuel prise hike (with his permission):

1. arun: n hey i read ur petrol blog post; u should read "Who are the common men of India" by Arjun Sengupta n others at NCEUS
2. arun: did u know that 77% of Indian population survive on less than Rs.20 per day?

3. me: ohh. all i was saying is the companies and government have their breaking point on how much they can bear. Which if get over will cause years worth of hard work {to be wasted}

4. me: 90 % of all the leader who are against price hike are totally ignoring this fact. Congress does not deserve this much ridicule

5. arun: the point is the people who are affected by price hike are around 90%; whereas those who lose out a little of their profit (not loss) is only a few thousands; the people who survive with less than 20 Rs a day (837 million or 77%) will be affected drastically; as petrol price hike increases all prices
6. arun: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3867/is_200710/ai_n21279019/pg_1

7. arun: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3262393/Indias-common-people-Who-are-they-How-Many-are-they-and-How-Do-they-live

8. me: if those few people loose out, on a long term everyone will be at a loose, as they cannot provide jobs or growth to the country.

9. arun: hehe; what use are jobs if they cant survive? read the first link

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We all have to agree that [a] is true. A large percent of Indians do live on what even their fellow coutrymen would think is a small amount. The question is, what approach does the govt. adopt for their development?

The govt. can either
(1) Take matters into its own hands, run all the essential services in the public sector, and keep the economy isolated from the ups and downs in the global economy. This is what was happening right from Independence upto the beginning of the 90s. And we all know how slow the economic development of the country has been then.

(2) Allow private investment, and hope that the jobs so created and the huge amount of investment, especially from an open market system, will improve the economy, which in turn will help the impoverished, albeit only at the very end of the line. As the overall growth in the economy shows, this strategy has paid off, but the benefits of the rapidly growing economy is yet to reach the bottom layer.

In the current scenario, it is the duty of the govt, ant govt, to protect the interests of the masses and the private companies, the latter so that the investment potential of the country is not harmed. Granted, the private companies do keep their own profits in front, but they also tend to be socially conscious and provide steady and large sources of labour, if only to appease the country's govt and people who ultimately decide their future.

The Indian Govt. has clearly masked the effects of the global oil price hike from the population for as long as possible, but there has to be a breaking point. At this point, the loss of all private investment in the oil sector is simply not affordable. So, there has to a decision, even though a hard one, to set the balances right.

PS: These opinions are my personal ones. Please feel free to criticize.