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| NE industry frets over hike in petroleum prices |
| Supratim Dey / Kolkata/ Guwahati Jul 03, 2009, 00:05 IST |
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The hike in petrol and diesel prices has upset the industry of North-East which has been badly affected by the ongoing power crisis.
According to the industry of the region, the increase in prices of petrol and diesel in “one go” will have a “cascading effect” on it by increasing its cost of production.
North-East, the industry says, is a “consuming region” as most of the goods and raw materials used as inputs by it comes from outside the North-East. Any increase in freight charges due to hike in diesel price is obvious to increase the cost of production of the industry of North-East more than the industry of the mainland.
And this would happen at a time when the industry is already besieged by an acute power crisis in the region.
The industry of the region is of the view that the ongoing power crisis compels it to go for gensets, which consume diesel, thus increasing its cost of production.
Now, with rise in the price of diesel, the cost of production would further go up.
“The ongoing power position has already besieged us by increasing our cost of production as we need to run gensets for longer periods. With the increase in petroleum prices, per unit cost of power for us would further go up. All these would be coupled with increase in freight charges,” said RS Joshi, president of Federation of Industry and Commerce of North Eastern Region (FINER), the premier trade and industry body of the region. Joshi further told Business Standard that the government should take into consideration the fact that the industry of North-East need to pay more on import of goods and raw materials.
He suggested that the government should constitute a ‘price stabilisation fund’ which would partly share the burden of increase in prices of petroleum products, or should come forward with some package to compensate the extra burden that the industry of North-East will have to bear due to geographical location.
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