Govt needs to clarify whether it wants oil price control or exports

The consequences of such confused messaging were felt in the lack of bidders for BPCL, forcing Delhi to abandon efforts to privatise the refiner

Commerce Minister Piy­u­sh Goyal was all smi­les when India achie­v­ed a record $422 billion in ex­ports in the April 2021-Mar­ch 2022 fiscal year. The country earned at least one dollar out of every ten from exports of petroleum products.

Perhaps this statistic was missed by some top government officials who, according to a recent report, war­ned private oil refiners about “excess profiteering”, accusing them of diverting gasoline and die­sel overseas while starving their retail outlets of transport fuels.

“The high growth in exports of petroleum products had a major role to play in India crossing its target of exports of