This refers to Mihir Sharma's column "Thy hands, great oligarchs" (Policy Rules, February 27). In his narrative, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance's decision to increase gas prices from $4.2 per million metric British thermal units (mmbtu) to $8 per mmbtu is described as a "formula" devised by a desperate government pushed into a corner and devoid of economic or even common sense. And all this to benefit Reliance Industries Ltd. It ignores: (a) India's critical need to secure energy requirements, preferably domestic; (b) complexities and associated risks of locating and then productionising oil/gas fields anywhere in the world; (c) the capital-intensive nature of the entire process; (d) the work of a committee headed by C Rangarajan, and not the government, recommended this formula; and (e) the major beneficiary of this formula is ONGC and, thus, the Indian taxpayer. So was everybody on the take? People have to come up with better conspiracy theories. Or they will end up sounding like Arvind Kejriwal and his "lauki" example.
Jai Oberoi Gurgaon
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