Slump in global oil prices can help improve govt finances:Khan

India should take advantage of the decline in prices of crude oil in the international market and use the savings to improve public finances, RBI Deputy Governor H R Khan said today.
"The oil price going down is an opportunity which should not be wasted and we should be bolstering our balance sheets," Khan said at an event here.
Global crude oil price of Indian basket has cooled significantly to USD 59.90 per bbl. India's annual petroleum, oil and lubricants imports bill is estimated at about USD 160 billion.
In January, RBI Deputy Governor Urjit Patel had said that the substantial fall in global crude prices can bring down the country's oil import bill by almost a third or about USD 50 billion a year.

The cooling in oil prices has given the government an elbow room to hike excise duty on petroleum products which could garner around Rs 20,000 crore (about USD 3 billion) to the exchequer.
Commenting on rate hike by US Federal Reserve, Khan said: "The big risk as all of us know is of US action -- the scope, the speed and the size of the rate hike," Khan said.
In mid-January, India's foreign exchange reserves touched a new life-time high at USD 322.135 billion, driven by higher foreign fund inflows and lower forex outgo on the back of a massive fall in global crude prices.

Foreign funds had been pumping more and more dollars into Indian equities ever since the new government assumed charge in May.