UPA making oil firms richer: BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday alleged that the government's contention of oil companies going insolvent if prices of petro products were not increased was wrong and backed its argument by providing profit figures of the three oil PSUs in the country.

"The Congress government is offering a wrong reasoning in support of price rise of petrol, diesel, kerosene oil and LPG. The government says that oil companies would go insolvent if prices of petrol products are not increased but the figures of the petroleum ministry project a different picture," BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

The main opposition's fresh attack comes a day after the nationwide bandh it organised over the same issue. Prasad maintained that according to the 2009-10 report of the ministry, the Indian Oil Corporation had earned a profit of Rs 4,663.78 crore (Rs 46.63 billion), that of Bharat Petroleum was around Rs 800 crore (Rs 8 billion), while profit of Hindustan Petroleum was around Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion).

"IOC gave Rs 656 crore as dividend to the government in 2007-08 and Rs 910 crore (Rs 9.1 billion) as dividend in 2008-09. IOC has to pay Rs 3,000 crore (Rs 30 billion) as dividend to government in 2009-10. Despite this, the petroleum minister is saying that the companies are in deficit," Prasad said.

The main opposition maintained that the cost of petrol was Rs 16.50 per litre but with the government imposing several taxes, it had shot up to Rs 53 per litre.

"It appears that the Congress-led UPA regime is bent upon making the common man insolvent to save the oil companies from going insolvent," Prasad said. Calling Monday's 'Bharat Bandh' a grand success, the Rajya Sabha MP claimed around 20 lakh people had taken to the streets and 19,000 courted arrest across the country.

He demanded that the government roll back the price hike. Prasad rubbished Congress' statement that the bandh caused harassment to the people and led to huge economic losses, saying these claims were misplaced as the strike was "spontaneous" and had mass support.

"One newspaper says loss was Rs 2,735 crore (Rs 23.75 billion), another says it was up to Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion). How can CII and FICCI figures differ like this? This whole assessment is so naive," he said.