10% payback on petrol through digital payment: Letters to The EDITOR

10% payback on petrol through digital payment

Currently TV advertisements by Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) are in plenty about 10-per cent payback on purchase of petrol-diesel through digital mode of payment. The Central government had earlier started .75-per cent payback if petrol and diesel are purchased through credit or debit cards from every petrol-pump of any public sector oil company to encourage cashless payments after demonetization of old currency notes of rupees 500 and 1000 on 08.11.2016.

It is beyond understanding as to why and how IOC alone can provide 10-per cent payback rather than .75-per cent by other oil-companies. Now with people already adopting card payments at petrol-pumps, incentive for cashless payments at petrol-pumps should be totally withdrawn. Or else it should be same for all public sector oil companies rather than just IOC advertising 10 per cent payback if digitally paid.

All public sector oil companies dealing in retail sale of petrol and diesel should be merged to save heavy overheads and advertising costs. Net payable retail price of petrol, diesel and CNG should be rounded in multiples of rupee one while of LPG refill in multiples of rupees fifty also to prevent daily fluctuation in prices of oil products.

Madhu Agrawal,

1775 Kucha Lattushah

Dariba, Chandni Chowk

Delhi-110006.

Maoists' bases in tea gardens

The shocking news that is doing the rounds at the moment is the consolidation of Maoists bases in the tea gardens of Assam. We expressed our apprehension long back that the deplorable financial condition of most of the labourers is solely responsible for making them vulnerable. Hence, they become an easy prey to get entrapped in the dragnet of the Maoists. Government wakes up from slumber only when there is a major incident of subversive activities resulting into the death of several innocent people. That apart, the news is rife about human trafficking, particularly from the tea gardens where young girls disappear overnight falling easy prey to human traffickers. Of course, the cases of poor young girls from outside the gardens disappearing in the same way are also rampant. With the passage of time, the number of cases of disappearance of young girls is increasing and some girls reappear from red light areas of the metropolitan cities after a period of time. We often come across news about the arrest of some human traffickers. Even children are vulnerable to human trafficking. We don't know about the provision in law to deal with these human traffickers. We want that provision in law should be toughened to hand out life imprisonment to the human traffickers, else, these people would again resort to their heinous activities.

Ashok Bordoloi,

Dibrugarh.