Of Lalu, Sidhu and GM

Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu are the clowns of Indian politics. But with a difference. Sidhu led the protest for the BJP against the fuel price hike by riding an elephant. Effective but clearly stupid. Do excuse my intemperate language, but the gall of the politicians to believe we are myopic and their complete lack of leadership in this time of crisis makes me mad.

The fact is that prices of oil in the international market have been spiralling. The government has only one alternative: to cut taxes on fuel, which it and all other governments (except the US) charge to bring in money for development. In other words, its option is to pass the burden of the price hike from the rich to the poor.

Lalu, on the other hand, issued advertisements from his ministry announcing a freight tariff discount on the railways. His message: "when bad news can be good news". Clearly, he knows that the answer to this inevitable fuel price rise will be in doing things differently -- moving towards mass transportation by railways or buses is part of this solution.

The Indian circus is being replayed in other countries as well. General Motors is America's symbol of glory and inventiveness. But it is Sidhu-type as well. We know that the issue of petroleum prices is very dear to the American people, whose auto-dependent lifestyle, their politicians say, is not negotiable.

GM has announced a promotional scheme -- the fuel price protection programme by which if you buy a GM dream car, the company will guarantee gas at a cap of $1.99 a gallon for one year -- no limits on how much you can drive. The problem is that the cars they plan to sell are the gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle (SUV) varieties. These cars give a mileage of 4-5 km per litre of petrol.

Let me spell out a few elements of the energy-security game-plan. We know that over 90 per cent of the petrol we consume is used in the private automobile sector and that a substantial proportion of the diesel is burnt in cars, with deadly impact.

Worse, we know that the price differential between petrol and diesel is pushing more private automobile manufacturers to follow GM's policy of making big guzzling diesel cars.

We must mandate fuel economy standards for all vehicles. China is setting tough standards and in particular is tightening controls on the infamous SUV fleet -- it has mandated an increase in fuel efficiency of 10 per cent by 2008. Second, we must make sure that we discourage the use of cheaper diesel for private vehicles, which may be more fuel-efficient but end up polluting more.

We can do this by tightening standards of fuel efficiency on the diesel fleet and putting in place fiscal disincentives on its purchase. Third, we must invest heavily -- and I mean heavily -- on public transport and railways. This is our insurance package.

But this is the package that our foolish politicians will mouth but not believe in. Quick-fix answers are what our politicians are looking for to feed this addiction for fuel. It is a high that will give us a low.