)
Clad in his trademark white khadi, Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily on Wednesday did what 2.3 million Delhiites do every day—travel by a crowded Metro train to reach office. The self-imposed austerity measure was part of a fuel conservation drive to save $5 billion on the crude oil import bill.
The minister had asked all the staff of his ministry, as well as of 14 public sector oil companies under him, to mark every Wednesday as Bus Day, when only public transport should be used.
Leading from the front, the minister walked the one km stretch from his home in Tughlak Lane to Race Course Metro station, wading through a crowd of 100-odd journalists battling for a sound bite.
Calling the move patriotic, Moily termed his Metro trip a “symbolic gesture” in an effort to cut the country’s overall yearly oil import bill by $23 billion. “I hope other ministers and the common man would follow this. As we spent around $145 billion on import of crude oil, we have to conserve also in order to bring down the current account deficit. In my ministry only, we were able to save at least $800 today (Wednesday) when more than 200 staff took public transport by saving about 600 litres of petrol or diesel,” said Moily.
The minister travelled amid an excited crowd who were eager to capture a snap of him, while visual media journalists fought for his comments.
The minister generously rejected an offer of a seat from a young man. “It was a seat for senior citizens. I don’t want myself to be considered a senior citizen,” he later said.
However, it was a hard job for the Metro staff and his security personnel to manage the crowd. When asked whether he would take public transport the entire day, he said, “I’ve asked my driver to keep the car in the garage, so that it won’t create any temptation to me.”
There were light moments, too, when Moily could not trace his Metro card to swipe while he was trying to exit. Two joint secretaries, Neeraj Mittal and Aramane Giridhar, and one director cycled their way to office.
The campaign, part of the minister’s larger roadmap to reduce the country’s import bill, included steps such as public sector and joint venture refineries keeping imports to last year’s level, depending heavily on rupee payment for imports from Iran, getting on with an ethanol blending programme and allowing oil marketing companies to arrange external commercial borrowing to meet their working capital demand.
For the Rs 45-crore, six-week conservation campaign, the ministry has roped in cricketer Virat Kohli and badminton star Saina Nehwal as brand ambassadors.
