A sin tax on petrol. Permanent lockdown.

"Complaints have been raised against the currently high levies on petrol and diesel at a time when international crude prices are relatively benign," wrote R Jagannathan. "The term 'extortion' has been used." Not without justification. India had the highest taxes on fuel in the world in early May when the cost of a liter of petrol was Rs 71. Today, the price we are forced to pay is in excess of Rs 80 per liter. The price of petrol on 29 June in the US was around $2.2 per gallon, which at Rs 75 to the dollar and 3.8 liters to one US gallon, works out to around Rs 43.50 per liter. On 29 June, petrol was selling at $0.854 per liter in China, which would be about Rs 65 per liter. Since, gross domestic product is a sum total of all the goods and services produced in a country, and since production needs a robust supply chain across the nation, it is not surprising that the US has a GDP of $22 trillion and China's GDP is $14 trillion, while we limp behind on just $2.9 trillion. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the Indian economy will contract by 4.5% this year, which means our GDP be around $2.7 trillion next year. It is also much cheaper for the Chinese military to move hundreds of soldiers and heavy equipment to the Galwan Valley. The Chinese murdered 20 Indian soldiers in a surprise ambush last month, 17 of whom froze to death after suffering severe injuries. Perhaps, if they had paraffin heaters some may have survived. Paraffin is a petroleum product. A 'sin tax' on petrol, like those on tobacco and alcohol products, is justified because "we import 80% of the stuff, and allowing demand to grow too fast is dangerous for the health of the economy", opines Jagannathan. India's oil imports cost $140 billion in 2018-19, but fell to $102 billion in 2019-20. However, non-oil, non-gold imports cost $334 billion in 2018-19, whereas we exported only $331 billion worth. We have a total coastline in excess of 7,500 km but we extract very little oil off-shore. Why? Because of the belief of politicians and civil servants that national resources are their private properties, wrote Peter Nichols and Rahul Tongia. "Indian shops are flooded with figurines of Hindu gods and goddesses made in China. A large number of small merchandise items such as buttons are imported from China because they are cheaper than India-made goods," wrote a professor. One of the reasons why is that, it costs the same amount to transport goods 7,300 km from Guangzhou to Mumbai as it costs to transport goods 1,400 km from Delhi to Mumbai. Costly fuel. Tax on fuel is a carbon tax and hence good for environment, wrote Jagannathan. So caring. India has just 22 cars per 1,000 people, said Niti Aayog Chief Executive Amitabh Kant, while the US has 980, the UK has 850 and China has 164. Lowest emission per head and lowest GDP per capita. We should be so proud.