SO WHAT CAN BE DONE UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES?

1If the government wants to put the country above the elections they should not under any circumstances reduce taxes on petrol and diesel and should allow the prices to be market determined. This may undoubtedly have some inflationary effect but to suffer it would be better than reducing taxes and benefitting only a small fraction of the population of the country who are the most vocal.

2Make an all out effort to push exports so that the CAD is brought down and eventually create a marginal trade surplus. It is imperative that the govt. solves the problem of refund of GST on exports immediately. There are easy solutions to it but govt. seems to be woolly headed on this so far. Generating a trade surplus must be put on a mission mode.

3Consciously ask all governments to reduce government consumption of diesel and petrol. It is easy, as the author has successfully implemented such a measure under different circumstances in the then state of MP.

4PM must appeal to the industry in India to save consumption of diesel and petrol by 10%. This is not impossible.

5RBI and the Finance Ministry must examine every individual outstanding external commercial borrowing by the private sector to ascertain their ability to discharge their debt service obligations and push them into earning foreign exchange.

6Keep a careful watch on import and export prices of goods and services into and out of India as there have been respectively of notorious cases of over and under invoicing.

7The country cannot afford to get into a populist syndrome at a time when the economy is trying to break out from its slumber.

The challenge facing the country now is a golden opportunity for it to become an export surplus nation and forever get rid of the periodical fear that grips the nation on account of uncertainties in the oil market.