Pay through Nose

A litre petrol in India would have cost us 25-30 Rupees, have been there no tax implications i.e. if we consider basic cost of petrol as 25 Indian rupees then 35 rupees approximately are the taxes and duties imposed on the poor fuel because of which it is available @ 60 Rupees a litre in retail market.


Even today the Base price of petrol is between 25-30 rupees added to which are taxes like Excise duty, Education Tax, Dealer commission, VAT, Crude Oil Custom duty, Petrol Custom duty etc, Which means we are paying effectively for 2 litres of petrol and getting 1 instead. You might have heard about buy 2 get 1 free but this one is strange and is one of its kind pay for 2 get only 1

With a recent hike of 3 rupees, the poor petrol is now costing @ 60 rupees in some of the metros; well it’s not shocking but was anticipated since the day government decided not to regulate the pricing, which implicitly gives authority to the oil marketing companies to decide upon the pricing at which the products can be made available in the market. Petrol got orphan letting marketing companies to drive it. Strange…!!! “Driving force getting driven”

Since last few weeks the entire machinery was struggling to tame the inflation to a single digit figure, Kudos!!! They achieved it recently….!!!. But the recent hike will definitely push it back to two figures. Petrol is not singled out from oil based products; instead oil marketing companies are eyeing to hike prices for Kerosene, diesel and LPG. Now as all these components have weightage in whole price index they will push the inflation.

Petrol has a weight of 0.88 per cent, while diesel has a weightage of over two per cent in the Wholesale Price Index, on the basis of which inflation is calculated and if the prices of petrol and diesel rises, inflation is bound to rise, LPG cylinder would add addition 0.2-0.3 per cent to the kitty, taking all together we can assume an increase of 1% approx in the inflation figures.

Protest, special comments and concern on the price hike has started pouring in and will gain some more momentum in a day or two once people start feeling the pinch of price hike.

I was wondering what will be the pricing of petrol once the crude oil touch the pre meltdown level i.e. 150 $ a barrel, definitely you can expect petrol costing @ 500 rupees a litre, Pray to God; it should not happen, that’s what we can do as individuals at this point of time

Image source: indianbuzzblog.blogspot.com

Ripple effect

In my earlier article (Way Out!)I have expressed that it will take some time for the realty sector to come out of the blues and with each passing day things will become tougher for everyone in the market be it developers or prospective buyers. Real estate companies and upcoming projects will be subject to stringent regulatory checks and controls. On the other end financial institutes has raised the bar for margin money to 20% from 15% earlier, which means the prospective buyers need to shell out additional 5% margin on their purchase.

Discovery of loan scam will have ripple effect and will trigger many events perpetually.

Prima-facie it is learnt that post discovery the real estate prices will decline which in turn will trigger margin calls for the developers who has placed that land banks as collateral. Developers, who have borrowed money by placing land/ project as collateral, will have to replenish margins that have fallen due to correction in overall property prices.

Real estate developers will be forced to borrow money at high cost or place more property as collateral to fill-up the lost margin. Developers will rope in money by inviting investment as a part of fixed maturity plan (FD’s) and might offer interest rates which will be obviously higher to other financial institutes. But possibility of raising funds through this route is also tougher as Real estate developers fixed maturity plan are finding few takers post meltdown and recent scam headlines have further dampened the already difficult fund raising efforts by them.

Apprehension, difficult to answer in a very immediate term, one has to wait and watch to see the market reacting, Developers will definitely explore Fixed maturity plans deposit route for funds raising by offering good interest rates. Investors who love to pursue risk can definitely explore the option as risk reward ratio will be lucrative but simultaneously should not forget to read the ratings given by rating agencies before investing.

Traffic Park

“I’m short tempered, impatient for the result” these are the known drawbacks which I’m trying to improve upon since years but the underlying fact is that one can’t change his/her nature rather improve it, and improvement is always a possibility.

It has been almost a month since my kid is requesting, to lend him my lapi; as he wanted to write down a story, but for no good reasons I was deferring. Yesterday he might have again developed zeal to write the story and decided to approach me. In normal case we adults instruct our children not to speak in between when some elderly person are talking, we also instruct them that if something is urgent they should interrupt the discussion in a polite way and seek permission to speak.

As generally kids are smart and obedient to follow parent’s instruction he interrupted the discussion politely and tried to whisper his interest in my ears.

I was annoyed; annoyed like anything. I couldn’t take whispering in right way.

I yelled at him.

I screamed....!!! tell me what’s that????, what do you want????

Broken in tears this young chap…!!! And was inconsolable.

He didn’t expected this rude response from his dad, He couldn’t speak, his face turned red and tears started rolling on his face, While weeping he couldn’t express what he intend to say and there was no connection between the words he uttered, but the only words which I could understand were “Story and computer”.

I realized my mistake that my behavior was not at all human; I apologized him, kissed him on his face and handed over the computer. He with his tiny fingers started typing his story, The last drop of his tears hanged outside his eyelids and dried away with the heat of excitement. His small palm was too short to cover the keypad, hopping from one button to another with his little two-three fingers, asking me to spell a lot of words, he narrated his story in an WordPad which goes as below.

Traffic park

“at my school in the morning we had gone for traffic park to learn some traffic sign .the sign where like this no entry, bumper, Turn. we enjoy were much one of my friend . got hart then we sit in the bus. go school back this is the wonderful day”

After reading his story and expression I realized his anxiety and curiosity was genuine and I should not have behaved like that. I appreciated his work, kissed him many times and tried to make him understand a new code of instruction “Do not whisper” Parents will be parents and they will always keep on instructing their wards

Image source: nevcoeducation.com