Nearly half of what we pay for Diesel, goes to the central government as excise

One of the comebacks to my farmer posts yesterday was from a neighbour who called to say that diesel was expensive as 'all the money paid by consumers went to Kejriwal.' I asked if he meant state governments in general, including BJP ruled UP, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, which kept back most of the money from diesel sales in state taxes. 

He was forced to agree that all state governments did so. He added that center had no role in increasing prices, only the state governments did. Centre kept back very little of the taxes he said, the lion's share went to state governments.

I wrote back to him : Sir, kal aap ne kaha ki the high price that the farmer is paying for diesel is because of taxes by state governments. Not as per this detailed analysis in May this year : 

Fuel prices in India are currently one of the highest in the world. Every time the farmer (or the rest of us) buys diesel : 

# Nearly half of what he pays goes to the center.

# Nearly a third goes towards the actual price of diesel with small amount of freight and dealer commission.

# Nearly a quarter of the price goes to the state govt. as taxes. 

# Central govt. taxes are double that of State.

This gentleman who called with the diesel story is a leading light of the ruling party at the center. He is helpful in colony affairs and is affectionate. But I supposed he had to project his party's defence. 

That defence follows a familiar pattern - jumble lies with half truths and discredit whoever has a different opinion.. hope most people wont look up the facts and repeated over and over, your lie will become the truth in people's minds. 

That is how the lies about muslims, nehru family, even gandhi are being propagated day in and day out.. thanks to being on several groups i can see what the paid trolls churn out on a daily basis.. all lies.. 

All the forwards you hear and posted on these groups - taken from facebook pages which stock hundreds of lying stories.. are LIES paid for by the ruling party, via trolls. Award winning books have documented this phenomenon in detail. 

Take any of these stories and check it for veracity. i have done it dozens of times... all lies which you happily swallow.

So what is the lie being put out in the case of diesel and farmers ? That centre has no role in increasing prices - lie. 

Central Govt. is the only beneficiary of increasing prices along with state governments (in a smaller proportion). Neither the consumer nor even the oil companies are benefitting from decontolling the price of fuel in india. 

When price of oil goes down in the international market (like it did in most of 2020), central govt. does not lower prices in india - it slaps more excise duty and takes all the savings from oil purchase into its own coffers. this has been done atleast twice this year already. 

No benefit of lower international prices is passed on to indian consumers, including farmers.

Another lie is that only State Governments benefit from slapping taxes on fuel. 

Central Govt. takes twice as much of the fuel amount as tax as state government. 

Nearly half of what you pay at the petrol pump goes to the central government.

Tamil Nadu's Bhopal - or how Unilever dumped Mercury waste

I wandered into reading on Tamil Nadu's Bhopal - or how Unilever dumped Mercury waste on Kodaikanal's pristine environment for 18 years..  and refuses to clean up even after it was forced to shut down its factory in the wake of the public uncovering of its dumped waste.

Kodaikanal is a hill station at 7000 feet on the Palani Hills in Tamil Nadu. It is part of the Shola eco system across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, which itself is a part of the Western Ghats.

Its hills are always kissing the clouds resulting in a high amount of precipitation.. the trees are short due to high winds, and there are extensive grasslands.. which make this ecosystem unique.

Mercury is one of the most toxic elements known. Ponds moved its factory  (later acquired by Unilever)  to make mercury thermometers from New York to its present site in 1983 as the temperature was low year round.

Legislation on mercury handling in the U.S. had begun to change after toxic side effects began to be publicised. The Ponds India management got special permission from the Central government in India to set up at Kodaikanal on the grounds that it was a non-polluting glass manufacturing unit (!). No formal site selection or screening process was undertaken to assess and minimise the impact of a mercury thermometer plant in an eco-sensitive area.

The Tamil Nadu Factories Inspectorate and the Pollution Control Board found nothing amiss in their periodic inspections of the factory including on workers' health. In 2001, it was citizens - the Palani Hills Conservation Council and Greenpeace, which caught the management selling mercury-contaminated glass to a local scrap dealer. Faced with the evidence, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board asked the factory to close.