Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to save fuel and stop gold purchases for a year has, as usual, not gone down well with the opposition parties. The debacle in West Bengal and Assam had taken away the opposition’s opportunity to vent its bitterness against Prime Minister Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party. After the appeal for fuel conservation, Yuvraj Rahul Gandhi and his colleagues lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, citing the country’s economic situation.
As this gives them satisfaction, there is no reason for anyone to object. Due to their consecutive defeats and no chance of victory ahead, Congress and other opposition leaders like Arvind Kejriwal keep spreading false information to create misunderstandings about every decision of the Modi government. We have seen how rumours of a gas shortage, spread by the Congress after the Iran–U.S. war began, led to long queues for gas. In spite of this rumour-mongering, Bharatiya Janata Party still secured a majority in West Bengal and also retained a state like Assam with a huge majority. Now, Prime Minister Modi has appealed for self-restraint in fuel consumption and gold purchases. This does not mean that India is facing a grave crisis.
India has sufficient foreign exchange available to import petrol, diesel and gas for the coming year. This is an indicator that India’s economy is strong even amid such a crisis. To avoid the way in which the United States, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund held the country to ransom when its foreign exchange reserves were nearly exhausted in 1990’s, it is the duty of the central government to conserve as much foreign exchange as possible. It is important to cut down on imports.
Crude oil, gold and edible oil are the three major items that India imports. The challenge before the government becomes relatively easier if citizens start saving these items or reduce the expenditure on them on their own, instead of the government imposing restrictions on imports of these items or on their use. We import about 50 lakh barrels of crude oil every day. That means India needs to import around 80 crore litres of crude oil, every day.
This also means that we import nearly 90% of our crude oil requirements. The current crude oil price is approximately 104 dollars per barrel. This means we spend approximately 52 crore dollars on crude oil imports every day.
In Indian rupees, this amount is about 4500 crores per day, which is Rs 15 lakh crore per year. If the price of crude oil increases by even one dollar per barrel in the international market, we have to pay an additional Rs 17,000 crore and even if the rupee depreciates by even one rupee against the dollar, it costs Rs 14,000 crore more. Today, the price of crude oil is more than 100 dollars, compared to less than 60 dollars last year. Therefore, we can understand how significantly it has affected our foreign exchange reserves.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed to the citizens to maintain financial discipline after taking the international situation into consideration. The Prime Minister has asked for all possible measures to be taken to save foreign exchange. For everyday travel, the Prime Minister has appealed to citizens to opt for carpooling instead of using four-wheelers alone, to avoid using four-wheelers and use the metro or other public transport whenever possible and to work from home if possible. Our gold imports are massive. If we can reduce them, the country’s foreign exchange can be saved significantly. Therefore, Prime Minister Modi has also appealed not to buy gold jewellery for the next one year. Our country imports gold worth Rs 7 lakh crore every year.
Even though we buy petrol, diesel and gold in rupees, oil and gold trade in the international market has to be done in US dollars only. A large amount of foreign exchange is spent by Indian tourists when they travel abroad. Therefore, the Prime Minister has also appealed to avoid such foreign tours. In accordance with the Prime Minister’s appeal, the state government has announced important measures for various departments. Special emphasis has been given to restricting foreign tours of ministers and officials along with encouraging use of public transport, energy conservation, promoting natural farming and holding meetings through digital platforms.
A decision has been taken to increase the use of carpooling, public transport and electric vehicles. It has also been suggested that senior officials travel by metro, local trains or buses at least once a week. Emphasis will be given to increasing the use of video conferencing for conducting online meetings, training sessions and seminars for official work at the Mantralaya, departmental and district levels. It is our experience that the common man always responds positively to every appeal of Prime Minister Modi. There is no doubt that this time as well the common man will positively respond to the appeal for fuel conservation and restraint on gold purchases.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
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