FROM BUSINESS WORLD OF 10 DECEMBER 2005
Who murdered
Manjunath?
At a literal
level, the answer to the question is well known. Pawan Mittal, son of the owner
of the petrol pump in Lakhimpur Kheri, has been arrested together with a friend
and employees at the pump for the murder of Shanmugam Manjunath, the young area
sales officer of Indian Oil. The reason why he was murdered is also clear: that
he had caught the petrol pump adulterating diesel with kerosene. Now the law
will take its course – which may be anything. The accused may be convicted; on
the other hand, if no one is prepared to stand witness, they may be acquitted.
In any case, as the home minister, Shivraj Patil, told Jairam Ramesh, his hands
are tied; law and order is a state subject, and all he can do as home minister
is to wash off his hands, wring them or throw them up in despair.
But, as Jairam
Ramesh told the minister of petroleum, he should look at the economic
dimensions of adulteration: that the pricing of kerosene vis-à-vis diesel oil
has created an adulteration racket stretching across the states. The government
forces oil companies to subsidize kerosene. The result is that it is hugely
cheaper than diesel oil, and every litre of kerosene added to and sold as
diesel oil brings effortless profits. Only an idiot would resist such easy
profits. One beneficiary of the racket killed a young man; but the others are
only following their economic interests; who can quarrel with that?
The government,
obviously, for it has ordained the kerosene subsidy. It has done so, not to
enrich petrol pump owners, but to make kerosene cheaper for the poor. It
distributes kerosene to ration shops for selling to the poor. But petrol pump
owners part with some of their profits of adulteration and buy off the kerosene
from ration shop owners. So the gains are more evenly shared. Who can quarrel
with the redistribution of income?
But the ration
shop owners were sold the kerosene to sell to the poor, not to petrol pumps.
They were being asked to do something against their economic interest. Would
they voluntarily be such fools? They are not. So ration shop owners, no less
than petrol pump owners, would carry on the racket unless they are policed.
The police are
busy enough catching murderers and directing traffic. But suppose they took
some time off and tried to catch the errant owners of ration shops and petrol
pumps. Would the latter just wait to be arrested? More likely, they would use
some of the profits of adulteration to bribe the police. That would be further
redistribution.
So the task is
left to single young officers of oil companies, such as Manjunath. And what
could he have done to stop the petrol pump owner from adulterating diesel oil?
Nothing. For as Manjunath told a friend when he was visiting the Indian
Institute of Management, Lucknow, his alma mater, petrol pumps are awarded to
people who have political clout. For that reason, they cannot be deprived of
the pumps; indeed, they cannot be punished in any material way.
This political
distribution of petrol pump licences is the reason why Manjunath died
fruitlessly and why many more will battle on uselessly: the government has
devised a system in which politically influential petrol pump owners can carry
on adulteration without any fear of punishment.
This foolproof
system was created by politicians. They have been hauled up to court for it
before. The case against Captain Satish Sharma meandered on for years before
the Supreme Court gave up. The scandal in 2000 when many pumps were found to be
allotted to supporters of the BJP – and every other party – petered out in the
same way.
The politicians
in power salve their consciences by thinking that they allocate pumps to
“deserving” persons such as war widows. But a sprinkling of war widows covers a
vast pool of candidates whose only qualification is that they knew some
influential politicians.
Politicians are
in games like this for their own benefit, so they are unlikely to give it
up because of one murdered young man. But this government is led by a man with
a conscience, a man who talks of development with a human face, a man who fully
understands the economics of the crime that is adulteration. We have a finance
minister who is known to be equally upright. Is it too much to expect that the
sad death of Manjunath would pinch their conscience just a bit? One should do
what is in the interest of the nation and of democracy all the time; but is
there never a time for doing what is right? For the right thing to do is remove
the kerosene subsidy, which goes to everybody except the poor.
