Industry experts, analysts say the proposal is 'impractical'. The country's oil refining companies are hopeful that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries will implement a price band for crude oil which they say will bring more certainty to their operations.
While petrol and diesel meeting the stringent Euro-IV specifications is to be supplied in seven metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad from April 1, 2010, Euro-III grade fuel is to be supplied in rest of the country from that date. Doubts had been expressed about meeting the April 1, 2010 deadline after an industry representation by IOC, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum sought postponement of the schedule.
Domestic oil companies have been invited by countries like Yemen, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia to pick up stake in existing refineries and also set up greenfield units.
These refineries, commissioned mostly in the 1950s and 1960s during India's early industrialisation push, are inefficient and costly to maintain compared to their modern counterparts on the coast mainly operated by private companies.
'I am a labourer's wife, the mother of labourers. But I won't be a labourer's grandmother for sure,' she says in the hope that her grandchildren will have a bright future in the Bihar that will unfold in the next decade.
