Some more ideas

Some interesting ideas have begun to emerge from the petroleum sector. For instance, the government wants to appoint a regulator to the board of a company that he oversees in his regulatory capacity. And the chief executive of an oil marketing firm wants to introduce dual pricing for petrol. These are innovative enough to provoke more suggestions and refinements.

For instance, Pradip Baijal, the telecom regulator who is out of line with the telecom minister, could be made a director of Reliance Infocomm, the company that he helped usher into the industry.

Indeed, Infocomm as a private sector entity should take the initiative in this regard, and Mr Baijal could then be paid sitting fees and given various benefits available to non-executive directors. Mr Baijal will surely be able to deflect all criticism that he has been bought over by Infocomm.

And the chief Delhi power regulator (as and when the government gets down to appointing a new one) could be invited on to the boards of the private sector power distribution companies that have caused so much angst to the capital's citizens. Don't fret too much about the fact that the regulator has to sit in judgement on the power tariffs that the discoms seek.

As a director of the same companies, he will know their inner workings and be better able to judge what is to be done, and call their bluff. For good measure, the director-general of civil aviation could be placed on the board of Jet Airways "" which needs help in getting good landing slots in Heathrow and elsewhere. The possibilities become limitless as the number of regulators multiplies.

The dual pricing idea throws up even more interesting possibilities. Why have just two prices for petrol, one for two-wheelers and another for cars? Why not an intermediate price for those using small cars, since the finance minister has promised a different excise regime for this category? And why not a super-price for those using

SUVs, since they are anti-social and deserve to be discouraged? And since it might be operationally difficult to have four different prices for petrol at the same petrol pump, we could have different outlets designated for different classes of vehicles "" and the people's representatives (who have a long history of recommending as well as owning petrol pumps) could be asked to recommend which should fall in what category.

Also, as was done with dual pricing in kerosene, we could have different colours of petrol "" including black for adulterated petrol. Life would certainly get more interesting.

Then, since the Indian Oil chairman has suggested different petrol prices for cities and villages, the government (ever mindful of the "aam aadmi") could refine the idea and have a super-low price for the 200 poverty-ridden districts that have been chosen for the first round of the rural employment guarantee programme.

And since super-cheap petrol from these districts should not find their way into rich metropolises, we could have a fence built around all the poverty districts. If the British could do that to protect their monopoly over opium in the nineteenth century, we can do better today.