<B>By Anil Gayan SC</B>

The decision of the APM to massively increase the price of diesel and to reduce marginally the price of unleaded fuel is an unmitigated calamity. The people responsible for the APM are either living on another planet or they are the best specimens of incompetence and uselessness.

The whole philosophy behind the APM, and may I say a philosophy which was accepted by the population at the time it was set up, was that prices of petroleum products would fluctuate depending on world prices. A mechanism which was and should continue to be AUTOMATIC was built into it so that transparency and the reality of prices would be reflected.

The credibility of the APM is gone and so is that of the people in it. The time has come to either disband the APM or replace those in charge by people who know how the APM works. It is simply impossible to countenance the deviousness and the manipulative character of the APM. It was not intended to be that. In any other country in the world, people would have demonstrated in the streets but the Government banks on the inordinate capacity of the people to suffer self-inflicted and inflicted harm.

In any event, whatever happened to Mangalore petroleum which was supposed to bring prices down?

All this is typical of the artisanal manner in which this Government is functioning. Or is it?