India Fuel Price Hike | Fuel Price Hikes Part of Global Crisis, Says Economist Surjit Bhalla

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]on the government's approach, the oil ministry's approach at the moment on passing oil, passing on the fuel uh burden to consumers. Four hikes in the last uh in the month of May. Are we on the right path in terms of how this is being pushed on to consumers? Do you see this continue? At what point will the government say if we take it any further, it'll break it'll break the back of the Indian consumer and therefore let's pause it. Let's get you off uh by talking about the manner in which petrol and diesel prices are going up and share with our viewers your insights on the extent to which you think petrol and diesel prices could go up further.

[00:00:37]So first you mentioned correctly this is a global problem. This is not a individual country problem and this problem has come up now fe starting in February uh or maybe in March. So the response has to take that into account.

[00:00:58]We are not unique. We are not the only ones facing this problem. And I think so far the government the fact that it has agreed to hike up the prices and perhaps even go up there's no reason why we can't go up to 115 uh for them to get there. I think the larger question which I hope we address what happens when we get back to normal the West Asian war is over then what should the respective policies be I think that is much more critical than the reaction to the very short term which there really is not much to say other than we should move up uh towards the international price or the break even price >> Gupta this is where it's hitting consumers. This is where it's hitting every person watching NDTV. They're alarmed by the fact that uh prices have been hiked up four times in the past few days. But the reality is this is part of a much larger global problems. The government really has no option. But you're also seeing the kind of political attacks coming the government's way. To what extent do you think the government can increase? Because break even is still about 13 rupees per liter at least uh for diesel for example and same for petrol. How much do you think the government can increase petrol and diesel prices by before inviting a serious backlash?

[00:02:20]>> So I think look um we have had a large cushion uh in terms of our prices were already very very high related to what the other countries had done. We were taxing the hell out of petrol consumption etc. So in that sense maybe we have to move less than other countries have to do. Uh but I would say given that the rest of the world is moving about 25 40%. We should be at the lower end of that scale uh perhaps 20 25%.

[00:02:56]But have in mind I think the way to handle it if but if somebody were to ask me is that we recognize it's a problem.

[00:03:05]We recognize it's likely to be a short-term problem but you know people have been saying the war is going to end war is going to end tomorrow but it's not but then say that because of this crisis international crisis every country in the world is facing this we have to do our share Okay.