FICO assails Centre, state govt over fuel price hike

Ludhiana: The Federation of Industrial and Commercial Organisation (FICO) has attacked Centre and state government over rising prices of petrol and diesel. According to office-bearers of the association, the rates of both fuels have shot up by Rs 7 per litre in a span of just one week.
Gurmeet Singh Kular, president of FICO, said, “The rate of diesel per litre has crossed Rs 72 and similarly, the rate of petrol has shot up to more than Rs 80 per litre. This massive increase has taken place during the last one week and its very shocking that both state and centre government are silent over the issue. At this point of time when we have opened after a gap of more than two months, any kind of hike in prices of our products will backfire. Therefore, both state and centre governments must address this issue at the earliest.”
According to Rajeev Jain, general secretary of FICO, “The consecutive increase in the prices of petrol and diesel is being implemented by policymakers without any economic logic. Therefore it can only be termed callous and insensitive move in these difficult times. The government on the other hand has hiked excise duty on both petrol and diesel in March and May, earning an additional revenue of Rs 2 lakh crore, but no benefit of this was passed on to the end consumers.”
Vipan Mittal, vice-chairman of FICO, said, “The government should be trying to increase liquidity or at least maintain the existing level of liquidity so that people spend money. That is necessary to counter the slowdown, but the government is instead snatching money from the people by letting the prices of essentials like fuels go out of control.”