Talking Shop: Love’s Labour’s Lost

“A bank is where they

lend you an umbrella

in fair weather and

ask for it back when it

begins to rain heavily.”

— Robert Frost

I have contracted the ‘Mobile-Phone-in-Mouth’ syndrome. I can think of no other Earthly reason that I jumped out of bed at 3 am the other night and grabbed my phone, clicked on WhatsApp and sent a quote (above) to myself. Have I lost it? If you are nodding sagely in the ‘Yes’, I thank you a zillion times, for you assume that I indeed had it in the first place. Let’s face it, we have all lost it, every last soul among us. Me, I was reacting to a news clip I saw earlier that evening, one that updated me about the global oil scenario and falling crude prices. Every barrel of the slick, black gold was cheaper by 21 per cent, I was informed. That should have been ooh-la-la for me and 1.5 billion others, but I could find no one laughing all the way to the fuel pump. Because the benefits of lower crude prices have not been passed on to the consumer.

Why is that? Well, it appears to be much like the headline of this column, where the aromatic banner of pakwaan in the policy kitchen isn’t quite making its way to the economic dining table. Just as William Shakespeare did with his play above, where his title had little to do with the plot, our policies too are steeped in mystery, misleading to deceive, not whetting the appetite or tantalizing the cash turnstiles. Shakespeare’s play and our policies defy not just our literary senses, they flout even the laws of physics and biology, which say what goes up must come down.

This is not the only instance of such vagaries happening.

Demystifying the ‘Oil Pool’

The oil pool is certainly not the only cesspool India faces. I could be labour and speak of sabzi and phal pool, namkeen pool, detergent pool, kapda pool, house-rent pool, ticket pool, bijli pool and other such pools that are just not carrot-proof enough to hold water. The list is long and getting longer. But we began with crude oil, so let’s quickly brush up our learnings on this slippery front.

For this, we shall have to go back to July 1975, when APM (Administered Price Mechanism) was launched, shifting the pricing of petroleum products from import parity to ‘cost-plus’. Under APM (1975 to 2002), an oil pool account was maintained to ensure stability in selling prices, insulate consumers against global price fluctuations, and subsidize products like kerosene and LPG for PDS (public distribution system). On April 1, 2002, APM was dismantled, with only kerosene and LPG being subsidized from then on.

It was only in June 2010 and October 2014 (for petrol and diesel, respectively) that state-run Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum shouldered the cloistering of the masses from price swings, bringing these two products under the market-determined pricing system. It was simple enough. If global crude prices rose, petrol and diesel prices would go up, and the other way around. So far, so good. The problem is while this is still the policy in letter and intent, it is followed intermittently. For instance, benefits are passed on mostly in lead-ups to elections and other such mega-occasions, rather than on a daily, piecemeal basis, despite the prescribed norm.

That, incidentally, was the real reason I woke up at 3 am to send whimsical WhatsApp messages to myself after the global crude price crash. After all, I had been denied my due buck, and more.

The more the messier

When India goes to the polls, even the Gods take a breather, for the skies are raining flowers and petals without their intervention. For the average Jane and Joe on the street, then, it is great that somewhere or the other across our vast nation, elections are always on, bringing in their wake a bounty of largesse and benevolence. The quandary is that when the hustings are in the past, so is the part-time magnanimity; that is, if it takes off and makes it to the ground at all.

Apart from fuel and LPG bonanzas, another example of poll-fed munificence is the Production-Linked Incentive scheme, the Digital India darling for four years. The PLI scheme and ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ are the pillars of the ‘Make in India’ programme, targeting industrial growth and job creation. In the Interim Budget for FY 2024-25 in February, the Government unveiled a Rs 6,200-crore PLI outlay, a rise of 33.8 per cent over the Rs 4,645 crore allocated in FY ’24. Since its launch in 2020, the PLI scheme has been grabbed by industry, with the ambit increasing from three to 14 sectors. But industry wants more.

There is a catch. Existing beneficiaries are cautious, waiting for promised cash incentives to reach their accounts. Only 5 per cent of applicants have received payouts, despite investing Rs 1.03 lakh crore, notched up production of Rs 8.61 lakh crore and generating 6.8 lakh jobs. Incentives of only Rs 4,415 crore (5 per cent of the total) have been disbursed – this needs to catch up to re-instil confidence. After all, justice delayed is justice denied and there’s no ooh-la-la for industry either.

Promises go a-begging

There are other promises yet to bear fruit for targeted segments – paradoxically, the ‘targets’ in most cases face Herculean, life-threatening situations. For instance, we have state Governments battling the fury of Mother Nature, desperately needing funds to shore up crumbling infrastructure and bring relief to their citizenry. People uprooted in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal and parts of the North-East after 2023’s natural disasters, still awaiting relief, have been struck by 2024’s repeat acts – stretches and swathes of mountains and hillsides decimated in 2023 stood no chance when no repairs were made and new calamities hit right where it hurts.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) is another example, with the Centre collecting levies for itself and for states, in equal measure. In many cases, the states’ share of the taxes is yet to reach them, and it is the general public that pays the price for the delay. In some cases, states have been learnt to have approached international aid agencies for fiscal support (read ‘loans’), but those have not been forthcoming. What we have, then, are severely debilitated healthcare, education, infrastructure and basic amenities systems, all weeping out aloud for way-overdue servicing.

The moral of the story and the path forward are simple enough, if only we collectively take concerted and well-intentioned steps and walk the talk. As Bryant H McGill said: “The world is not fair. Often, fools, cowards, liars and the selfish hide in high places.” That is the talk that needs to be delineated and pushed forth with, the battle that needs to be fought, for only at the end of this colourless ‘yatra’ will the rainbow and its VIBGYOR be visible. Only talk and no walk would mean no Violet and no Red, and certainly none of the shades in-between.

The writer is a veteran journalist and communications specialist. He can be reached on [email protected]. Views expressed are personal