• Fuel prices unchanged despite collapsing crude prices?

Despite the near complete drop in crude prices in the international markets, fuel prices -- especially diesel prices -- have not changed at all, claim sources linked to road freight (transport). Mentioning that it is having a negative impact on the road freight (transport) fraternity, which is striving to ensure better CV utilisation and smooth functioning of the essential goods supply chains, sources informed that the cost of the Indian basket of crude fell down below US dollar 20 per barrel in April 2020. Representing the average of Oman, Dubai and Brent crude, the cost of the Indian basket of crude fell to its lowest point since February 2002, they added. Remarking that the price of diesel has fallen only 10 per cent in India even though the Brent crude collapsed by 60 per cent, an industry observer said that the amount of taxes has far outrun the price of fuel. Stating that the key demands of the transporters strike in 2018 included reduction of diesel prices (diesel roughly amounts to 60 per cent of the operating costs of a transporter in India), he opined that the continuing prices of diesel despite the fall in international crude prices only shows that the government is not keen to address the hardships of the road freight (transport) fraternity, which measures threeand-a-half-times in billion-tonne kilometer term over railways and moves an estimated 70 per cent of the cargo in the country.