ABINASH SAHU 
Till the revelation of petroleum or crude oil no one knew that this would end up as one of the profoundly and extensively utilized source of energy within the future. Today we call it “Black Gold” as it has become a much vital source of energy for us and regarded highly for its value. Our country India is the second most importer of petroleum or crude oil and third most consumer of it in the world. Petroleum is refined to form many products for multiple use, the petrol we use in our car, the diesel, kerosene, gasoline, LPG etc, are all the products of petroleum. But what determines its price?
To answer this question we need to know the factors which actually determines the price of petroleum. There are many factors which actually decides the price of this. Factors like demand and supply, revised and changed price of crude oil globally, taxes imposed by the both Central and State governments etc generally dictates the price of petroleum and its products that we use in our daily life. But the rise in the price since last many years has invoked many difficulties for common people. For an instance let’s take the example of petrol, one of the widely used fuel in our vehicles, If we date back to previous years then the price of petrol was low as compared to now in 2021 , now the price of petrol has skyrocketed to more than rupees 100 a liter. Similarly if we see the price of LPG, it has also scaled high.
Amidst all this chaos there is always a blame game once the price of fuel hikes, many political parties, organizations come for protest as petroleum and it’s by-products is one of the most common and highly used commodity in the country. The price hike always affects the poor and middle-class people of the country.
Every time when we see the headlines in a newspaper or in some news flashing with big fonts about the increase in price of petrol, diesel, LPG the very moment we are disturbed and shocked. No one might have ever imagined that the price of petrol will rise above rupees 100 in such time.
Today in our country we can see the price of petroleum products has reached to a new record and the common people are bearing the brunt of this price hike. Many political parties have staged many protests pertaining to this rise in price. If we compare the price it has been steeply increasing since last few years which is striking hard on common people. It’s quite obvious that both Central Government and state government takes the tax amount imposed on the petroleum. But the current scenario demands reduce in the price of petroleum.
The pandemic has already broken the economical backbone of poor and middle-class people of the country, the pandemic has also triggered job loss, lockdowns followed by economic downturn. The price hike is pinching hard on common people’s pocket who are struggling due to economic hardship during this pandemic and at this point of time, the government should come forward and its onus should be focusing on how to reduce the price of this commodity. So that common people can heave some sigh of relief.
Written by: Abinash Sahu ( The author is an Engineer turned Journalist and alumnus of Indian Institute Of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal)
