Diesel price rise

The editorial “

>A perverse move ” (Jan. 23) rightly pointed to the likely impact of the diesel price rise on the lower income groups — living on zero savings thanks to inflation — and correctly suggested a dual pricing of diesel.

However, instead of relying heavily on oil products subsidy to achieve fiscal consolidation, the government should pay equal attention to other important measures such as controlling unnecessary expenditure, heavy leakages in the welfare expenditure and postponing some of its populist measures. Growth rate can not be accelerated if political concerns outweigh economic concerns.

Rameeza A. Rasheed,

Chennai

The editorial is a well thought out analysis of the pricing of petroleum products. Allowing the oil companies the freedom to charge market prices for bulk consumers like the Railways and state roadways corporations will only lead to inflation and add to the burden of the common man. Besides Railways and state roadways corporations, trucks and buses too should be given diesel at subsidised prices.

T.S. Somasundaram,

Coimbatore