Though oil marketing companies are pressing hard for a third hike in the current year in the price of petroleum products claiming they have to ‘shell out’ an additional Rs800 crore per day to buy crude oil from international market, their balance sheets for the last five years speak of windfall profits. Financial experts and economists point out that they could make neat and reasonable profit even if they sell petrol at the rate of Rs30 per litre.
“Petrol could be sold in India at the rate of Rs30 and still the companies can make a neat profit. The frequent hikes in prices made by them are unjustified and they are cheating the public,” said Dr Subramanian Swamy, noted economist and former Union Minister for commerce and law. He said petrol and diesel prices in India are quite high compared to other countries.
Dr Swamy pointed out that the balance sheets of Indian Oil Corporation, BPCL and HPCL are proofs of the windfall profits made by these companies during the last five years. The IOC, the biggest public sector oil giant, declared a dividend of 95 per cent to its shareholders for the year 2010-2011. “A cursory glance at the balance sheet of the company for the last five years show that IOC had declared dividends of 193 per cent, 55 per cent, 76 per cent and 130 per cent during 2006 to 2010. This proves that the company is making huge profits. Let there be an open discussion on the balance sheets of IOC, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum. We can understand how they are taking the common man for a ride ,” Dr Swamy said.
No comments:
Post a Comment