Two aborted missions, three different ministers, multiple rule changes and two decades later, Indian taxpayers will no longer have to pay Rs 20 crore per day to keep the loss-making Air India flying. While opposition Congress expectedly attacked the decision as selling the family silver, DIPAM secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said what Tata is getting is not a cash cow but an airline which is bleeding where money needs to be pumped in to refurbish obsolete aircraft and dust up strangled ones while being unable to touch any employee for one year and only be able to resize staff after paying a VRS. "It won't be a very easy task there. Only advantage is they (new Air India owner) are paying the price which they think they can manage. "They are not taking the excessive debt accumulated to fund years of losses. We are continuing it as an ongoing concern.... This process has also saved huge amount of taxpayers money going forward," Pandey told PTI.
'I have no problems with the finance ministry or with state governments treating petrol pump prices as the last resort for meeting their ambitious spending targets with very limited revenue resources.' 'But let's do away with this smokescreen of free pricing of petrol and diesel and go back to administered pricing regime,' says Dr Sudhir Bisht.
The market price action seems to point in this direction. Let's hope we finally break out. It is about time! asserts Akash Prakash.
Petrol dealers called off the strike planned for Friday to protest against government not passing off the benefits of drop in prices of petroleum.
Ahead of assembly polls in states like Rajasthan and Delhi, Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily on Tuesday said his ministry is mulling withdrawing the order that made it mandatory for state public transport utilities to buy diesel at market price.
Diesel in Mumbai costs Rs 79.72 per litre at IOC outlets and Rs 79.79 at BPCL outlets.
"The Corporation has decided to offer a voluntary retirement scheme, with a view to enable employees who are not in a position to continue in service of the Corporation due to various personal reasons, to request for grant of voluntary retirement from the services of the Corporation," Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) said in an internal notice to its employees.
For neighbourhood youth the strike came as a blessing in disguise: in space-starved Mumbai, a little room goes a long way in promoting their cricketing instincts
While the Union Cabinet had in November last year approved the sale of the government's entire 52.98 per cent stake in BPCL, offers seeking expression of interest (EoI), or bids showing interest in buying its stake, were invited only on March 7. The EoI submission deadline was May 2, but on March 31 it was extended up to June 13. On Wednesday, the government said this deadline is further being extended up to July 31.
With almost all opposition parties and several trade unions backing the 'Bharat Bandh' and many announcing parallel protests in support of the farmers, the Centre has issued an advisory directing all the states and Union Territories to tighten security and ensure COVID guidelines are followed.
With this increase, diesel prices have touched a record high while petrol is at a 56-month peak.
Royal Dutch/Shell on Thursday said it may set up a petroleum refinery in India, a country to which it attaches highest priority.
The government is keen to close the sale before March 31, 2021, to help meet a record Rs 2.1 lakh crore target which Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has set from divestment proceeds in the Budget for 2020-21.
Daily wage earners and casual low income group workers were the worst affected
Royal Dutch-Shell has made a come back after nearly three decades in fuel retailing in India, setting up its first petrol pump in Bangalore.
The Election Commission has rubbished any allegations of misuse of the EVMs.
Diesel fuel injection systems supplier Delphi-TVS on Saturday said it would invest Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) to manufacture common rail fuel injection systems and set up a technical centre in Chennai for product development.
While FIIs have pumped in nearly Rs 17,000 crore, MFs have been net buyers to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore.
The Western world keeps talking, ratcheting up sanctions, the only thing it can do. The Russians march on to Kyiv and capture Zelensky and key members of his government as part of their 'de-Nazification' drive, predicts Shreekant Sambrani.
Ministry sources say investors are looking at pumping in around Rs 1,100 crore
Relatives of John Philip have informed the Kerala CM and the external affairs minister that they suspect it to be a case of abduction.
British scientists have developed low-cost and environment-friendly "artificial petrol" which may cost around Rs 14 a litre and could be available at pumps in as early as three years.
China's journey up the growth curve has been so fast that the ride down could be equally nerve-racking.
These notes can be used at government hospitals, railway ticketing, public transport, airline ticketing at airports, milk booths, crematoria/burial grounds, petrol pumps, metro rail tickets, purchase of medicines on doctor prescription from the government and private pharmacies, LPG gas cylinders, railway catering, electricity and water bills and ASI monument entry tickets. Highway toll has been scrapped till November 14.
Petrol and diesel are among the 90-plus commodities that have been approved by the government for derivatives trading
Only Rs 10,720 crore of the junked currency notes did not return to the banking system, rest 99.9 per cent was deposited raising question mark over the government's effort of curbing black money through the demonetisation.
Curfew-like restrictions have been imposed in the area, which is the headquarters of the Dera Sacha Sauda sect.
State-owned fuel retailers, who control 95 per cent of the petrol pump sales, sell diesel at government-fixed rates, which are way lower than the cost of production.
All payments made via debit and credit cards, net banking and mobile wallets will be entitled to discounts.
Concerned over the fuel shortages and petrol pumps running dry, the government said on Friday it would deploy central forces to ensure supply lines are not dried due to the ongoing strike by oil sector executives. "The government will deploy central forces wherever necessary," petroleum secretary R S Pandey told reporters even as petroleum minister Murli Deora met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to brief him about the strike by officers of oil PSUs.
Fuel supplies in many parts of the country were affected on the second day of the indefinite strike by oil PSU executives that also resulted in refineries running below capacity and impacted oil and gas production.
The BJP-led government had raised excise duty nine times between November 2014 and January 2016 to shore up finances as global oil prices fell, but then cut the tax just once in October last year by Rs 2 a litre.
It is a testament to some of the policies that were put in place to raise fuel-efficiency standards
'We have no time for meals. We don't sleep on time or have family or community interactions.' 'All this stress has made us pressure cookers without valves.' 'No wonder then we are bursting out with heart attacks,' points out Dr Udgeath Dhir, director, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram.
After making it available at petrol pumps, the convenient 5-kg cooking gas (LPG) cylinder will now be available at kirana stores and supermarkets in select cities.
'It is not about trusting the governor but the ground situation not matching with what he has said,' Jammu and Kashmir People's Movement chief Shah Faesal, who was one of the leaders to meet the governor tells Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore.
Oil companies choose to skip the revision this time.
Government may impose a 25 per cent cess on big diesel cars and charge bulk users other than railways and state transport corporations Rs 22 a litre more for diesel as part of a dual fuel pricing policy.
Fuel retailers sell diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene at government controlled rates which are below market price. The loss they thus incur is made good through cash subsidy from the government and dole from upstream firms like Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.
Global supply is staying in excess of demand.
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