Increasing Price of Petroleum Products and Indian Economy

Previously the prices of petroleum products in India have hit the psychological levels of ₹ 100. However, later on, the prices have gone down slightly but these falls in the prices seem to be temporary considering the trend of the global crude oil prices. It must be noted that such unilateral increase in the prices of the petroleum products has a multifaceted negative impact on any economy and when in question is the Indian economy which is almost dependent on imports for the petroleum products and petroleum products are main fuels consumed by consumers and industry, the impact might be even bigger.

Rising Inflation Poses Risk to the Recovery in the Indian Economy

For the last many months, inflation in the Indian economy is rising. Both the retail inflation as well as the core inflation has increased to 5.03 percent and 5.7 percent respectively in the month of February 2021 in the economy in comparison to the month of January 2021. During the same period, the Index for Industrial Production (IIP) has contracted by 1.6 percent (Mishra, 2021). This has happened when the economic activities in almost every sector of the economy is expanding (Upadhyay, 2021).

Technically this increase in the inflation can partly be attributed to the small base belonging to the earlier month but on overall, it is largely due to the cost push pressures building up in the economy. Most importantly, the inflation is not expected to moderate significantly in the short term besides the base effect until and unless the government decides to cut the taxes on the petroleum products. A major reason for the accelerating inflation in the economy is due to the increasing prices of petrol and diesel. In the last one month, the prices of petrol and diesel have increased by 20.6 percent and 22.5 percent respectively (Kaul, 2021). As a result of the increasing price of petroleum products, the demand for the petroleum products has contracted consecutively for two months in a row since January 2021 (Pathak, 2021).

Reservation in Private Sector Jobs

Reservation is considered to be a positive discrimination to undo the social injustice and inequalities metted out over centuries but people have varied views about the same and India is not an exception to it. Over time people from all spectra of life willingly or unwillingly have accepted and come to the term with the reservation on the basis of caste in the government jobs and education in India. But of late people belonging to the Unreserved (UR) category and creamy layer of OBC (Other Backward Caste) have been becoming very vocal against the caste based reservations as it makes difficult for them to get government jobs and admission in government education institutions (Kumar, Pratap, & Aggarwal, 2019). Considering these disadvantages, there was demand for reservation on the basis of income which now has been accommodated through a new legislation by the Indian Parliament for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) of society (MSJE, 2020).