Oil price and farmers

The government’s erratic actions as regards fuel price are making the crisis worse confounded. Under external pressure fuel price has been raised repeatedly. This with its multiplier effect almost put the economy off balance : prices went up and food production was threatened. More recently the Finance and Planning Minister dismally forecast that oil price would be raised further without specifying when another round of price hike would take effect and to what extent.

..In the latest move the government has increased the price of petroleum products by Taka one per litre excluding kerosene, in the northern part of the country for the next 15 days. This is a strange way of tackling energy price in northern region. Within the tenure of the present government fuel price had already been revised upwards seven times on the ground that prices had gone up globally. Meanwhile millions of farmers are in utter distress being deprived of fertiliser, uninterrupted power supply and availability of diesel during this dry season.

Independent bd