Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines Pralhad Joshi has said that the country was witnessing a “never-before-like” situation because of COVID-19 and has said that he was hopeful of the Union government taking a suitable decision to check fuel prices at an appropriate time.

Addressing his first formal press conference after his return from New Delhi, Mr. Joshi said that because of COVID-19-induced lockdown and subsequent developments, the resources of the Union government had dwindled and so had revenue collection. “In this time of crisis, the Union government is depending on revenue collection from taxes on petroleum products for taking up various welfare and crisis management initiatives. I am sure that the government will take an appropriate decision on bringing down fuel prices at an appropriate time,” he said.

The Union Minister, however, said that it would be beyond his purview to quantify the time required for the appropriate action. He added that the Union government was considerate to the plight of the people because of the hike in fuel prices.

He further said that decontrol of fuel prices was done during the tenure of the UPA government and the fuel prices were now dependent on crude prices in the international market. However, the government would take a sympathetic view considering the problems caused by the pandemic, he said.

Strict monitoring

To a query, the Minister clarified that the allotment of coal blocks for commercial exploitation did not mean that they would not require any mandatory permissions.

“Firms interested will have to get all clearances from the government agencies concerned. And, what is more important is that there will be strict monitoring of mining in the allotted coal blocks to ensure that there were no irregularities. We have now put in place a perfect monitoring system aided by satellite camera surveillance which will immediately send alerts to the agencies concerned if there are any violations,” Mr. Joshi said.

Defending the decision to allot coal blocks to private players, the Minister said that it was required to make the country self-reliant in coal production.