The
Russia-Ukraine war will hit both central and state governments in India. If the
Indian government has decided excise and VAT are reduced and petrol and diesel
prices remain at the current level, the exchequer is likely to lose up to 1
lakh crore for the financial year 2022-23. If this happens, there is a risk
that budget estimates will be overturned. In fact, oil companies have kept
petrol and diesel prices unchanged since November last year. Prices are still
at $ 85 a barrel. Crude is currently trading at a seven-year high of $ 105 a
barrel in international markets. According to this calculation, a liter of
diesel in the country should increase by 9/- and petrol by 14/-. But oil companies
have not raised prices since November last year under pressure from the
government in the run-up to the five state assembly elections.
If
the central and state governments do not take an immediate decision on another
tranche of excise and VAT reduction, it is expected that the people will
inevitably be bombed as soon as the final phase of polling ends on March 7. If
the same happens, economists predict that retail inflation will rise further
and the RBI will immediately step in to raise interest rates. With the
Russo-Ukraine war, sunflower oil imports from those countries ceased. As a
result, 3.8 lakh tonnes of sunflower oil purchased by Indian companies from
these two countries stopped at their ports. The war also closed cooking oil
refineries there. As an alternative, Indian companies have increased imports of
palm oil from Malaysia, Indonesia, soybean oil from Argentina and Brazil.
With the latest
developments, the prices of these two cooking oils are skyrocketing. As a
result, the price of cooking oils is falling again in the retail market. The
Ukraine-Russia war will also affect coal supplies. As a result, exports of
ordinary coal as well as coking coal used in steel factories came to a
standstill. This further increased the price of these two products. Public
sector Coal India is not in a position to fill that gap. There are speculations
that power cuts may not occur in the summer if conditions do not improve
immediately. Steel companies, on the other hand, are preparing to raise prices
once again.
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