It is adulterated decontrol

The regime is going in for the easy way, by decontrol, removing subsidies.

It is quite easy to narrow the gap in income level by simply taking away the subsidies and hiking prices.

The regime should, instead, provide a clean slate, even if it is copy book capitalism, by not mixing taxes while it says there would be decontrol of prices.

Now what the regime is doing is simply allowing the taxes attached years ago to the prices of petroleum products and then giving up responsibility and allowing companies to go on hiking prices.

When the court intervened in the 2G scam, so many skeletons are falling off the cupboard. Just like that the court should intervene and look into the state of affairs of the petroleum companies before allowing them to hike prices.

Now the people know many things- about Rs 1.76 lakh crore swindle in the 2 G scam, Rs 1.20 lakh crore in the give-away of gas plots in the Cauvery basin and what not. Lakhs of crores flow out like this. The known figures are flabbergasting, and the unknown figures could be unimaginable.

You are wasting money like this to a few, and then fleecing 120 crore people of whom the majority are common people. It is easy to swipe their coffers.

There should be imaginative ideas to save the people from burden, even if you decontrol. But then, the decontrol you speak about is not decontrol as such, it is adulterated decontrol.

One may say the price of petrol in France, US, UK is roughly equivalent to Rs 70-75. But then the minimum wages for a worker could be seven dollars, seven Euros, seven pounds per hour.

And also there a citizen has fabulous social welfare schemes. The complaint there is that people go lethargic, without going to work, and enjoy the social welfare benefits.

Here what is it? If you have Rs 26 in the rural areas or Rs 32 in the urban areas, you are above poverty line.

So whatever be the assertions about liberalisation etc, don't burden the people without offering social welfare benefits- full stream.