Hard realities about fuel
The violent
reaction on the part of some sections to the rise in fuel prices
could be traced to a considerable extent to the unexpected
nature of the price hike. That is, the public was totally
unprepared for the price announcement, nor did it bargain for so
steep a rise. Accordingly, when the 'price blow' came many were
floored.
However, it is not only the relatively steep hike in the
prices that need to be factored in when assessing public
reactions to the state decision. As pointed out in this
commentary yesterday, there is the political dimension to be
taken cognizance of and one should never forget the penchant on
the part of subversive political forces to exploit situations
which could deeply embarrass the government. In understanding
the recent violence in Chilaw this possibility should be borne
in mind and it should have been clear that a very complex
scenario had arisen in the coastal town, which cannot be
understood in simplistic terms.
Be that as it may, it is quite clear that sections of our
public are somewhat in the dark about basic realities with
regard to the use of fuel in this country and connected economic
realities. It is the responsibility of the government to educate
the people on these issues regularly and public reactions to the
recent price announcement would not have taken the unsettling
forms they did in some areas, if lucid explanations of price
escalations and their causes were made to the public the way
Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa did yesterday in this
newspaper. The Minister elucidated the reasons for the fuel
price hike and connected issues in the simplest terms and we
hope this process would be taken forward with regard to many
other issues on which the public would need to be fully
informed.
Admittedly, the fuel picture is a highly complex one. Even
sections of the more informed public may not have grasped the
totality of the questions which constitutes the energy crunch
and it is the responsibility of the state and other relevant
sections to unravel the full dimensions of the problem. For
instance, it may not be known by all that our vehicle population
has more than doubled since 2003. The number of registered
vehicles of numerous categories in 2003 stood at a little over
two million. Today it stands at a little over four and a half
million. Correspondingly, our fuel bill too should indicate an
increase in the relevant expenses.
Likewise, according to informed sources, petrol consumption
increased by a little over 14 percent in 2011. This corresponded
with a rise in the demand for fuel in the North-East, on account
of the opening up of the region for development, along with the
revival of the region's fisheries sector and an increased demand
for diesel, necessitated by our thermal power generation plants.
These are just a few relevant facts which the observer needs to
bear in mind while analyzing the present problems on the fuel
consumption front.
However, true to its welfarist traditions, the Lankan state
has been continuing to subsidize the prices of diesel and fuel
down the years, notwithstanding the fact that the Ceylon
Petroleum Corporation has been labouring under astoundingly high
losses.
Considering even these few facts, a fuel price rise could be
considered justified, but what went wrong in this instance was
that some sections of the public were not prepared for the
change. If the state had spoken more to the public, perhaps,
their apprehensions on this score could have been defused.
However, those forces resorting to destructive politics would
have, in any case, rendered the situation unmanageable for the
relevant agencies of the state.
So, simplistic thinking needs to be shunned on these issues.
The realities are complex and the challenges facing the state
correspondingly difficult to overcome. However, disaffected
sections would be only making their lot more difficult by
falling for the dark schemes of political forces which are bent
on adversarial and confrontationist politics. There needs to be
mutual understanding and accommodation between the state and
those crying 'foul' over public questions that are divisive. |