[kdeepakk]

Hello All;

( Mods: merge/move this thread if required. )
Today we saw an hike in petrol & diesel price by around Rs. 5 & 3 respectively. Just after the announcement all the petrol bunks started overflowing with vehicles. Everybody was trying to top up their tank.
And after couple of hours the queue started growing & by the night 10pm saw the vehicles piled up in front of all petrol pumps near sadashivanagar & shesadripuram. I saw minimum 20-25 cars & around 50-75 two wheelers in front of all bunks around . And the major surprise was that many of the car drivers had kept their vehicles ON & waiting for the turn to fill the tank. Every person by the time he goes for his turn he would have spent more than 20mins in the queue & he would have kept the vehicle in idling for more than 10mins & would have started the vehicle more than 10 times as the queue moves on. Think probably by doing this he would have lost atleast 1 ltr of petrol. If at all if he tops up the tank he will be saving around 150rs

Approx tank capacity - 35 ltrs ( considering 800, alto, santro & Wagon r in the queue )
Available fuel in tank approx - 5 ltrs
Top up ltrs - 30ltrs
Price difference - 5rs
Total saving - 30ltrs x 5ltrs = Rs. 150/-
Also to the surprise i saw people doing shopping sitting in the car
I saw people buying Ice cream, fruit juice, chats etc. from the near by shop.

Approx people might have spent around rs.100/- by buying eatables.

So finally what did people save by waiting in the queue for more than half an hour? Is it really a saving? Or is it a virus in human brain?
I dont think a person who has bought the vehicle spending 4-5lacs, would really mind for Rs.100-150. Correct me if i am wrong.

But i really dont see value in people waiting ( some with their families, some kids crying in the car )for an hour at night 11pm to save Rs.150. What if your car / bike gets punctured? What if some drunk driver touches your car? I pray nothing bad happens, but still precautions are better than cure.

Couple of Photos taken from mobile. Sorry for poor quality.

[jesal]

why did u make a new thread for this again ?

[abhinav.gupta88]

Thankfully i did not have to stand in queues. When i went in the morning with my other car being driven by my driver, it was not at all rushy
i got the chance within a minute. Though saw the rush at night while returning from the gym. it was terrible

Even if people bought the eatables, you wont say that as a spend due to petrol pump because people may not have come to the pumps and gone out for food altogether.
Yes keeping the engines on if u have a waiting for 15-20 mins is like pure wastage.

[SilentEngine]

Interesting observation. I think, sometimes its all in the mind, there is a price hike yes, but people act hastily without really thinking if it is worth it (i.e waiting in the long queue for filling fuel and saving around Rs 150). Its more like mass hysteria.

[Sahil]

Originally Posted by kdeepakk

considering 800, alto, santro & Wagon r in the queue

Thats not really true,got all my cars filled up all my cars today...took the BMW to fill up at 11pm...you can call me cheap or whatever but paying excess is a totally waste of money the tank was almost over and if i didnt fill up tonight my driver would next morning and pay 270bucks extra and thats just a sheer waste of cash even tho it might not be a big saving.

I thought i'd be the only one amongst wagonRs,etc but to my suprise there were other mercedes,accord,etc in line...was a good sign as people still value money irrespective of income.

obv if u r waiting in line for hours or driving several kms its stupid but in my case the pump was on my way home and hardly 7 mins wait...so well worth it!

[razor4077]

Originally Posted by IronWolf

And is Kolkota going to have only a 3Rs hike? for sure? kudos to CPI(m).
Do you think they are going to strike shortly?

Trivandrum/Cochin/Kolkota boys - happy holidays!!

Yep, in West Bengal, 3 bucks hike for petrol instead of 5, and 2 bucks for diesel instead of 3. Not sure about LPG.
I absolutely abhor bandhs/strikes. We end up the biggest losers in the process. For starters, getting to office before 6 AM... for TWO CONSECUTIVE DAYS

Happy Holidays... I wish! Lol!

[gkrishn]

Originally Posted by IronWolf

Trivandrum/Cochin/Kolkota boys - happy holidays!!

Add chennai to that.
Tomorrow i have an appointment with chennai us consulate. And these guys have declared a bandh there too...

[zaks]

Originally Posted by HKP

Can anyone tell me how much its going to cost for a litre of petrol or diesel in Bangalore. I am away, just wanted to know.

I hope the new BJP gov does some tax cuts to bring the price of petrol in Bangalore. Currently its highest in India.

Ok, the news is out. It is Rs58.5/lt for petrol and Rs.39.8/lt for diesel here in Bangalore. That is petrol increased by Rs.6 and Diesel by Rs.3

Originally Posted by IronWolf

Trivandrum/Cochin/Kolkota boys - happy holidays!!

stupid left parties have no idea how to deal with inflation! each bandh will reduce productivity and cause prices to rise further

I'm enjoying a holiday, yes, but as a doctor running a private practice, I'm also losing income as I cannot travel safely to my clinic 25km away.

the fuel prices have been hiked for a good reason. I dont see the need to blame the govt, or disrupt life.

@ironwolf-this post was not directed at you, its just frustration on watching a state with so much potential being destroyed, bit by bit.

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by sahakar

China and Malaysia subsidize heavily. Malaysia has already affected a 40% hike today and they are planning to further increase to bring the prices to international level.
China is the only odd man out right now and they too will be increasing soon. (Maybe after the olympics).

Expect prices of crude oil to start falling once all the big economies increase the prices of fuel. Demand will go down and prices too will start coming down in another 6 months or so.

Till then its pain at the pump.

My Avalon now tanks up at 80$. (A year or so back it used to be around 50$) I actually have to do two transactions at the pump in the US as the pumps in the US only allow max 75$ per transaction.

Enjoy the subsidized fuel in India.

The fuel at first is very heavily taxed and then subsidized, and this is what I am against. Earlier also, some of India's neighbouring countries had cheaper fuel when we were paying 50.X rs.
If government want to get out of the subsiziding business, well its good, but then they must not come up with different type of taxes.
Fog eg: The transportation tax. If the fuel is refined in my city, and aslo send to a city 120km away, then that city must pay, but why me ?

Delhi has cheaper fuel than what I have. Again the point here is: if the central government wants to control the fuel, then there should not be so much disparity in fuel prices.

Now something about the quality. The quality of fuel is not good and the end user does not get what he pays for. This is known phenomenon all over India.

About the wrong usage of finances: Where from the government got the money to forgive the huge amount of loans of farmers ?

Things are certainly not good and clarification from government is required. The salaried middle class pays income tax and then again faces the taxation on fuel.


OT: In US, the cost of Hyundai Verna is lets say is $ 9000 for the base version. Here it is more than that. Consider the cost of elecricity and you will realize that its becoming increasingly difficult for the salaried class to survive.

[aaggoswami]

What really makes me think is the fact that here the dealer or the fuel selling agency did all he wanted to do. He could have sold you old stock, unfair quality and quantity.
Yesterday my friend returned from a near by place and went on to fill up his Zen and Splendour. Zen he could not manage because of crowd and so it was now only his bike. His bike was almost dry, so he went on to fill the entire tank. Today morning at 7, I got his call, the bike is not starting.


This could be and hopefully is a local phenomeon and the pump he went to is nearby his residence, but not the best.
My point here is that we could get cheated.

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

A more cruel and more effective (if i may say so) way would be to shoot all the lower middle class and poor people in a line!
Hats off dude!

No the idea is to disincentivize population growth and price rise cud be one of the effective means. The biggest challenge India is gonna face in coming years is how to feed (and provide water as our country has scarse water resources as well) ever increasing population. And its generally the poor people who have more kids. My perception is it is so as things are still very affordable so people can still afford to have 4-5 kids (by cutting on other things but they can still afford to feed them). Why are things (like food) kept at such artificially low prices in the first place?
In any case, its pointless to blame govt for everything. If prices are increasing globally (2 years back when I was in US, petrol there was around 2 dollars a gallon, Now it is more than 4 so it has also doubled there in 2 years. In India it has moved from 35 to 50 or 55 now so same increase) they are bound to increase in India as well. The money govt was making from duties was used to build the nation (buy resources, build roads, hospitals etc) and not entirely going into politicians pockets. So if we cut down on duties we also cut down on nation building!
Take your pick - would you rather have cheap petrol (thru artificial price control) or would you rather have roads/hospitals/food etc

[greenhorn]

the pump i went to had run out of petrol, so it was virtually empty!

[praveen_v]

5Rs hike in petrol!! Now there goes the budget for my spoiler and Alloys!!
Cutting down on these two items will even out my fuel expense for more than a year(if they dont hike it in the near future!!)


What I dont understand is that why dont the state govt reduce the taxes when there's a fuel price hike?? Every time there is a hike, only the central govt cuts duties, while state govts get away with their share of taxes.

WB has reduced taxes this time, but no other state showed any intention of doing it!!

[dadu]

I agree with Deepak, its all psychological except for transporters & taxi's where even a rupee saved matter.

For the others, just skip your one visit to Mcdonald's with family and that would save you more than you could have by standing in this queue.

Deepak this is a nice writeup, you should send it to TOI woth pictures for publication tomorrow to create some general awareness.