The country is
boiling with the problems connected with #LPG. The price goes on increasing,
limiting the quota per year haunts the users and linking the cylinder with #Aadhar increases the worries. The ordinary people are in arms against the
Government. Political leaders encourage them blindly, with a view on their
votes. Why is there so much confusion related to this?
This is exactly
the technique used by the #corporate lobby. First of all, they introduce you to
some alternative for the conventional system, get you accustomed to it,
encourage you to use it through demonstrations and list of advantages. Then
they gradually wean you away from the conventional and make you dependent on
the new. After this, they preach about the harms done by the conventional and
make legal claims against its use and get it banned. They manage to force the
government to fall in line with them by hook or crook.
It is now that
they begin to show their fangs. The new system that was introduced at a very
low price begins to become dearer and dearer day by day. By this time, they
have established a sort of monopoly. They get the government to allow them to
decide the prices by the companies and they increase it at their will and
pleasure. People have no other go but to buy it at the price decided by them.
If by chance somebody attempts to curtail them from doing so, the companies
speak of loss and damages and establish their rights.
Now let us
examine the situation in the context of LPG. When LPG was introduced for the first
time, it was dead cheap. Then, when people began to use it, firewood was
discouraged and gradually banned. The only other alternative was kerosene,
which is already priced high and scarcely available. When LPG became the best
substitute, the companies began to increase the price. They persuaded the
government to give them the right to decide the price. When the quota of LPG
was restricted, they got the people to resist it. When it was proposed to link
LPG with Aadhar, they have so far managed to stall that also.
Does anyone know
the grammar and syntax behind all this? The companies were reaping a fantastic
harvest when there was no restriction on the number of cylinders. Along with
regular users, black- marketeers also thrived. The selling agents of LPG
profited immensely from this, with the silent concurrence of the oil companies.
For them, it was just the number of cylinders sold and the profit arising out
of it, whether it was in regular market or black.
Restricting the
number of cylinders to six per year told on their profit through curtailing the
scope for black-marketing; Linking Aadhar with LPG would weed out the illegal
sale and restrict the supply only to genuine users. Does anyone know the number
of cylinders sold now and what it would be if spurious sale of domestic
cylinders is weeded out? Nobody would tell you this statistics. There would be a sharp fall in the profits of
the oil companies. Now they would go to any extent to inflame the people
against the government to act in the companies' favour. The people who have
been forced to go in for LPG will fall an easy prey to the tactics of the
companies.
This analysis is
true about all petroleum products and all fields wherever monopoly exists. The
situation was the same when India had only two car companies and only one
telecom service. The successive governments did nothing to bridle the oil
companies or to encourage domestic production of LPG. Those who are fleeced on
account of this are the poor people of India who have to pay through their nose
and to vote for similar inactive people in the next elections too.
