Air India

18,000 Employees of Air India Cannot Hold the Nation to Ransom

Air_India_001

 

Newsreports suggest that 11 Air India unions representing more than 10,000 employees have started a social media campaign with the Save Air India slogan.

The Indian government plans to sell 76% of its stake in the airline. Under the current terms, the buyer needs to give a guarantee that the permanent employees of the airline will not be fired for at least one year.

After that the buyer is allowed to offer a voluntary retirement scheme to the employees.
This condition along with the fact that any prospective buyer has to takeover two-thirds of the Rs 48,447 crore debt (as on March 31, 2017) of the airline, has led to a situation where none of the Indian airlines are interested in buying Air India. (We don’t know about the foreign ones as yet).

Newsreports also suggest that the International Finance Corporation, the private investment arm of the World Bank, is likely to underwrite the debt amount of Air India for the successful buyer of Air India.

It is highly unlikely that any prospective buyer will buy Air India without any arrangement to handle the $7.5 billion debt of the airline (Rs 48,447 crore at $1=Rs 65).

Given how risky and difficult the airline business is, such a huge debt amount can pull down even a currently profitable airline. Also, it is worth remembering here that two out of three mergers that happen, fail.

While, the debt part of the airline can be handled, how the government handles the employees of Air India, is more important.

As on January 1, 2017, the airline had 18,049 employees. In comparison, IndiGo had 14,576 employees as on March 31,2017. IndiGo also employed 8,225 employees on a temporary/contractual/casual basis. Indigo has 40% share in India’s domestic airline business and is a profitable airline. Air India has 12% of India’s domestic market share and has a 17% share in flights in and out of India and it loses money.

How do things look at the employee cost level? The employee benefit expenses of Air India during 2016-2017, stood at Rs 2,558 crore. This worked out to around 11.5% of the total revenue earned during the course of the year.

In comparison, Indigo spent Rs 2,048 crore and this worked out to around 10.6% of the total revenue earned by the airline during the course of the year. Clearly, the employee cost is much more in case of Air India.

Having said that, the difference is not much but can nevertheless be important in a low margin business like airlines are. For any prospective buyer of Air India, one of the easiest ways to control costs, is to get rid of the non-productive part of the employee base.

And any prospective buyer having paid good money to the government would want to employ this strategy. This is a low-hanging fruit, but the current terms of sale don’t allow a prospective buyer to do that.

But such a situation is likely to arise only if the government is able to sell Air India.

Before that, the employee unions are likely to show their nuisance value by making it as difficult as possible for the government to sell Air India. The social media campaign is
just the starting point. The opposition parties are likely to join in as well.

The Congress politician Manish Tewari recently tweeted about what happens if British Airways buys Air India. He went on to ask, “won’t souls won’t souls of millions of Freedom Fighters who sacrificed everything turn in their graves?”

This is terribly bad rhetoric, given that British Airways was privatised way back in 1987, but then the Congress party has always liked the idea of the government owning public sector enterprises (This is not to say that the Bhartiya Janata Party doesn’t). The British Airways is just another private airline now and one of the most successful privatisations ever carried out in Britain. So, if British Airways buys Air India, it will be a great thing because the airline has some experience in turning around a government owned airline, and running it profitably over the years.

As far as the employees are concerned, their protests are hardly surprising given that most of them have spent their lifetimes working for a government owned company. The future is unlikely to be as cozy as it is under the current owner and they will make every effort possible to ensure that continues.

But the current owner has spent a lot of taxpayer money to keep this airline going. Between April 2010 and December 2017, the accumulated losses of the airline were at Rs 46,256 crore.

To keep the airline going, the government invested Rs 26,545 crore into the airline since April 2011. Over and above this, the airline has taken on working capital loans from banks, which as on March 31, 2017, stood at Rs 31,088 crore. This basically means that the airline keeps running because of the loans it keeps taking on. The banks are lending to the airline primarily because it is owned by the government, leading to the actual debt of the government going up. They would have long-stopped lending to a privately owned airline in a similar situation.

The larger point being that every extra rupee that the government spends on this airline, is a rupee taken away from something else. Let’s take the case of defence. In fact, Vice Chief of Army Lt Gen Sarath Chand told a Parliamentary panel sometime back that 68 per cent of the Army’s equipment is in the ‘vintage category’. “Funds allocated is insufficient and the Army is finding it difficult to even stock arms, ammunition, spares for a 10-day intensive war. All the three services are expected to be prepared for at least 10 days of intense battle,” he said. This is clearly not a good trend. There are more important
things that India needs to spend money on than Air India.

Also, if the government is serious about genuine privatisation (and not the kind where LIC buys government’s stake in public sector enterprises) of loss making as well as profitable government companies, it is important that the sale of Air India goes through.

If the 18,049 employees of Air India are allowed to hold the country to ransom then so will the employees of other loss-making government-owned companies like MTNL, BSNL and a whole host of other companies, in the days to come.

If the government doesn’t handle the employees of Air India seriously, then the entire idea of selling Air India, was yet another jumla to come out of this government.

This originally appeared on Firstpost on April 16, 2018.

Under Current Terms Only LIC is Likely to Buy Air India

LIC

India’s three main airlines, IndiGo, Jet Airways and SpiceJet, have made it clear that they are not interested in buying Air India, in the current form it is being offered in. (As I finished writing this column, a Reuters journalist tweeted to suggest that the Tatas are also unlikely to bid for Air India, as well. Guess, nostalgia, doesn’t always work). The government of India wants to:

A) Sell 76% of Air India.

B) 100% of Air India Express, the low-cost arm of Air India.

C) 50% of SATS, a gateway solution and food services provider. Against this sale, the government, wants the buyer:

a) To take on two-thirds of the debt of Air India. As on March 31, 2017, the total debt of the company was at Rs 48,447.37 crore. Two-thirds of this works out to Rs 32,298 crore.

b) The buyer also needs to give a guarantee that none of the permanent employees of the airline will be sacked for a year. After that the buyer can offer them a voluntary retirement scheme.

In return, the buyer, along with the aircrafts of Air India, will also get 2,543 international landing slots negotiated with many countries, over the years. The landing slots is for what any airline will want to buy Air India. The real estate of Air India, which includes the famous Air India building in Nariman Point, will continue to remain with the government.

What also works for the prospective buyer is that Air India has 12% market share in the domestic market in India. While, this has fallen from a 100% market share once upon a time, when private airlines were not allowed to operate in India, it needs to be taken into account that only 3% of Indians have travelled by air. Hence, the potential is immense. India is one of the last big airline markets that remains untapped.

Also, the airline has a 17% share in flights in and out of India.

All these factors work for the buyer. But there are other factors which don’t. As mentioned earlier, the airline had a debt of close to Rs 48,447 crore as on March 31, 2017. Two-thirds of this debt has to be picked up by the buyer.

The working capital loans constitute Rs 31,088 crore of this debt. This is a little lower than the amount of debt that the government wants the prospective buyer of Air India to pick up. It is worth asking how has this debt accumulated over the years? The airline loses money every year and in order to continue operating it needs to borrow.

The banks lend money to the airline because it is ultimately deemed to be lending to the government and a government doesn’t usually default. A private enterprise in the place of Air India, would have had to shut down by now.

The larger point is that by asking a prospective buyer to take on two-thirds of the debt, the government basically wants the buyer to take on the overall accumulated inefficiency of the airline.

Rs 33,298 crore is a lot of money and is basically a deal breaker as far as the sale of Air India is concerned. This kind of debt it could even bring down the airline that decides to buy Air India. (In fact, we had said the same thing in a column which appeared on January 15, earlier this year).

Other than the working capital loans of Rs 31,088 crore, the remaining Rs 17,360 crore is basically loans that have been taken for buying aircrafts. If this portion of the loan is passed on to the buyer, there is at least some justification given that there are airplanes that were bought using the loan.

Also, any prospective buyer will adjust for these loans before deciding on the price it wants to buy for Air India. But on the whole, the debt will drive away most prospective buyers.

Further, it is worth remembering that airline has lost a lot of money over the years and it continues to lose money. The airline lost Rs 41,657 crore between 2010-2011 and 2016-2017. These losses have continued in 2017-2018 (for the period between April to December 2017). Take a look at Table 1.

Table 1:

Domestic (Rs. in lakh)International (Rs. in lakh)
Traffic Revenue505,9641,044,676
Total Cost676,2311,334,296

Source: Loksabha Questions PDF 

Table 1 tells us that between April to December 2017, the airline lost a further Rs 4,599 crore. This basically means that the accumulated losses of the airline between April 2010 and December 2017, stand at Rs 46,256 crore.

Now that’s a lot of money. Other than the airline borrowing money to keep itself going, the government has also pumped in money into the airline over the years. Take a look at Table 2.

Table 2:

YearEquity Infused Rs. in (crore)
2011-121.200
2012-136,000
2013-146,000
2014-155,780
2015-162,500
2016-171,713
2017-18 (till date)1,800
Total Cost26,545.21

Source: Loksabha Questions PDF 

This infusion is a part of a restructuring plan which provides Rs 30,231 crore of equity infusion from the government into the airline, until 2021. It is clear that the restructuring plan is not working given that the airline continues to lose more than what the government has invested in it, over the last few years.

This isn’t surprising given that the cost of operation of the airline is very high. As a recent report by Kotak Institutional Equities points out, the operational costs of Air India are Rs 4.74 per available seat kilometre, in comparison to Rs 4.33 for Jet Airways, Rs 3.6 for SpiceJet and Rs 3.16 for IndiGo.

The airline also has a huge number of employees, backed by powerful trade unions which can be a huge nuisance. As on January 1, 2017, the airline had 18,049 employees. In comparison, IndiGo had 14,576 employees as on March 31,2017. IndiGo also employed 8,225 employees on a temporary/contractual/casual basis. Indigo has 40% share in India’s domestic airline business. Air India has 12%.

Also, 37.6% of Air India’s employees are retiring over the next five years. The trouble is that no prospective buyer will be willing to wait for five years, so that the airline can then have the right number of employees. Any quick turnaround will only happen if the buyer is allowed to fire employees.

The larger point here is that the airline is clearly not a family jewel that the government considers it to be (like all other public sector enterprises). It is basically a dangerous wound which has been bleeding the government and continues to bleed it. This bleeding needs to be stopped and it can only be stopped if the government decides to be a lot more flexible about the terms on which it is willing to sell the airline.

In fact, the government is more likely to attract bidders if it tries selling different parts of the airline, separately. For starters, the domestic business and the international business of Air India, need to be offered separately. In fact, even Air India Express, which primarily has flights to the middle east should also be offered separately. This might attract different buyers.

Further, the buyer should be allowed the flexibility of the doing what he deems fit to run the airline. The government cannot sell the airline and then want to continue running it through the backseat, by implementing terms and conditions.

Also, if this means that a few thousand Air India employees lose their jobs, then so be it. They have had a good time at the expense of the taxpayer, for many years now. This is as good a time, as any, to end it. If the government continues to run the airline, it will have to continue pumping money into it. This is money that is taken away from many other important areas like education, defence, health and agriculture. Further, the debt that the airline takes on will also eventually end up in the books of the government.

Under the current terms, the only institution that is likely to buy Air India, is the Life Insurance Corporation(LIC) of India. Given its past record under different governments in buying public sector enterprises, it won’t be surprising if the financial institution is forced to come to the rescue of the government and pick up a stake in the beleaguered airline. Funnier things have happened.

The column originally appeared on Equitymaster on April 11, 2018.

India’s Rs 1,66,276 Crore Problem

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One of the major points that we talk about in India’s Big Government is the fact that the Indian state is overambitious. The government wants to do too many things at the same time, and ends up making a mishmash of everything.

One of the areas where the governments (both central as well as state governments) devote a lot of their time and attention are public sector enterprises. In the past columns, we have discussed many cases of central public-sector enterprises continuing to bleed and the government continuing to bail them out, year on year. This includes loss makers like Air India and Hindustan Photo Films Manufacturing Corporation, which have been losing money for many years.

In fact, very recently, the government revealed the losses of the perennially loss-making Air India, in the Lok Sabha. For 2016-2017, the government owned airline made losses of Rs 5,765 crore. Despite all the government spin around the airline working in a much better way, than it was in the past, the losses increased by 50%. In 2015-2016, the losses of the airline were at Rs 3,837 crore. With these numbers, it is surprising that a few media houses chose to report the fact that the operating profit of Air India, had improved year on year. But how does that matter, when the losses have gone up by 50%?

The airline has lost a total of Rs 41,657 crore, between 2010-2011 and 2016-2017. It continues to function on back of the government investing money in it, every year. Between 2011-2012 and 2017-2018, the government has invested a total of Rs 26,545 crore, into the airline. Of course, as we keep saying, every extra rupee invested in this airline, is a rupee taken away from more important areas like defence, education, health, agriculture etc.

Over and above this, the banks give the airline working capital loans. These loans as of March 31, 2017, amounted to Rs 31,088 crore. The question is why do banks give an airline which has accumulated losses of greater than Rs 41,000 crore, more loans? The answer lies in the fact that Air India is ultimately owned by the Indian government. No private sector airline in a similar situation, will get bank loans.

And lending to Air India is essentially lending to the government. Any default on loan repayment by Air India will be seen as a default by the Indian government. Hence, the assumption is that such a default is never going to happen. Given this, banks are happy to keep giving loans.

The point in throwing all these numbers at you, dear reader, is to show you, that it takes a lot of money to keep a “dead elephant” like Air India, alive. It is beyond the government babus who run this airline, to breathe life into it. With every new appointment at the top, we are told this gentleman will now revive the airline. But that hasn’t happened in years.

Meanwhile, the government continues to invest money in the airline. At the same time, the accumulated debt of the airline stands at Rs 48,447 crore (this includes aircraft loans over and above, the working capital loans). The good part is that the total debt is down from Rs 52,817 crore as of March 31, 2016. This is ultimately, the liability of the government of India, which actually does not show on its books.

In the recent past, there has been some talk about selling the airline, lock, stock and barrel. But then, until things really happen, talk is just talk. In fact, the government has been talking about selling the airline since June 2017. The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating.

Air India, over the years, has become a poster boy of the government owning and continuing to run, loss making enterprises. This problem is well known at the central level. In 2015-2016 (the latest set of agglomerated numbers which are currently available) 78 out of the 244 central public sector enterprises, were loss making. Of these nearly half of the companies had made losses three years in a row. Further, between 2006-2007 and 2015-2016, a period of a decade, the net profit to capital employed ratio, of the central public sector enterprises has fallen from 12.27% to 5.97%. This tells us how well the government’s capital (or in other words the taxpayer’s capital) is being put to use.

The story of central public sector enterprises not doing well has been well highlighted over the years. But the same cannot be said for public sector enterprises owned by the state governments. Economist Vijay Joshi in a recent lecture pointed out: “In addition to Central PSEs, there are around 1000-odd State PSEs, of which two-thirds make losses, including notably the zombie electricity distribution companies. The aggregate losses of all PSEs, central and state, amount to about one per cent of GDP annually.”

One percent of  the GDP is not a small amount. The GDP (gross domestic product) at current prices for 2017-2018 is projected to be at Rs 16,627,585 crore. One percent of this works out to around Rs 1,66,276 crore. This is a large amount of money.

Of course, a lot of this amount, the government is not currently paying for directly. Many public sector enterprises borrow from banks, in order to make up for their losses. The banks lend them money simply because these companies are ultimately owned by the central and the state governments.

Hence, the total liabilities of the government keep increasing day by day and will have to be paid for one day, simply because a government cannot default.
Rs 1,66,276 crore are just the projected losses of India’s public sector companies, for this year. Imagine, the kind of losses that have been accumulated over the years. Now imagine the kind of money that has been borrowed by these companies to keep running.

And now imagine, the kind of money that the government of India will have to provide in the years to come, to keep repaying these loans.

It’s a very scary proposition. And since, in the end, we are always asked, but what is the solution, let’s provide a solution, at least this time around. As Joshi said in his speech: “So far, successive Indian governments have been stuck with the fetish of 51 per cent ownership and have only flirted with the idea of privatization…It is high time the government grasped the nettle of mounting a substantial programme of privatization, at least of those PSEs that make losses or meagre profits… This gain could be used by the government to invest in socially beneficial activities that the private sector would normally avoid, such as rural roads and irrigation.”

But this is what we call an impossible solution. Joshi is not the first economist to have recommended the sale of public sector enterprises and the investment of the money thus generated into public goods. The government(s) have been in the know of this solution for a very long time, and have chosen to do nothing about it, up until now. And there is no reason for them to change that.

The column originally appeared in Equitymaster as on February 15, 2018.

Selling Air India Will Be a Real Test for Modi Govt

Air_India_001
The government owned airline Air India has been losing a lot of money over the years. Take a look at Table 1, which lists out the losses of the airline over the last few years.

As can be seen from Table 1, over the last seven financial years, the airline has made losses of Rs 39,535 crore. Over the years, many experts have attributed different reasons for the airline doing so badly. While we can keep debating about these reasons, what is more important is that the government stops supporting the airline now and use that money in other more important areas like education, health, agriculture etc.

Table 1:

Air India Losses (in Rs crore)
2010-20116,865
2011-20127,560
2012-20135,490
2013-20146,280
2014-20155,860
2015-20163,837
2016-20173,643
Total Losses39,535

Source: Public Sector Enterprises Surveys and Loksabha Questions PDF 

In 2012, the government had approved a turnaround plan for Air India. It entailed an equity support of Rs 30,231 crore from the government, over a period of ten years. Of this amount a total of Rs 26,545.21 crore had already been released by the government to Air India, as of December 2017. Given that the airline continues to lose money, it is important that the government stops investing more money in the airline.

As on September 30, 2017, the airline had a total debt of Rs 51,890 crore. Of this working capital loans amounted to Rs 33,526 crore. A reasonable question to ask here is why are the working capital loans of the airline so high? Given that the airline has been making huge losses over the years, it has needed loans to keep afloat.

The next question is why have banks lent money to an airline which has lost so much money over the years? The answer lies in the fact that lending to Air India, is like lending to the government and governments typically don’t default on the money they borrow. (At least that is what the financial markets tend to assume most of the time).

Also, in order to keep repaying working capital loans over the years, the airline has had to take on more loans. Of course, the only institution which can keep taking new loans to repay old loans, without being questioned, is the government.

To its credit, the Narendra Modi government has initiated the strategic disinvestment plans for Air India (strategic disinvestment is a government euphemism for privatisation). In May 2017, the NITI Aayog recommended the disinvestment of Air India and its subsidiaries. In June 2017, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), gave an in-principle approval for considering strategic disinvestment of Air India and its five subsidiaries.

Further, last week the government allowed 49 per cent foreign direct investment in Air India. This means that foreign airlines can now team up local players to buy the airline. Up until now, foreign airlines were allowed to buy up to 49 per cent of a local Indian airline, but this wasn’t allowed for Air India.

There are a number of issues that still remain and need to be handled smoothly and successfully, if Air India has to be sold.

1) The airline has a debt of close to Rs 52,000 crore. No airline is going to buy Air India along with this debt. The CCEA which gave an approval to privatise the airline in June last year, also decided to constitute an “Air India Specific Alternative Mechanism (AISAM) to guide the process on Strategic Disinvestment of the same.”

As the minister of state for finance Pon Radhakrishnan told the Lok Sabha in a written answer in December 2017: “AISAM decided for creation of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for warehousing accumulated working Capital Loan not backed by any asset along with is four Subsidiaries, noncore assets, painting and artifacts and other non-operations assets of Air lndia Limited.”

This basically means that in order to sell Air India, the government is ready to take on the working capital loans of Air India.

2) If the government is ready to take on the working capital loans of Air India, amounting to Rs 33,526 crore, then the unions of Air India might have a question or two for the government. As a Business Standard report points out: “The Air India unions have represented to the government that if the government writes off the Rs 30,000 crore debt, which is the key to the financial problem, there is no justification to privatise the airline. Surely they will not take it lying down.”

It remains to be seen how does the Modi government handle the nuisance value of the trade unions.

3) Further, Air India has aircraft loans of Rs 18,364 crore. It remains to be seen whether prospective bidders for the airline would want to start their business with loans of more than Rs 18,000 crore. If they do take on this debt, the price they will be ready to pay for the airline won’t be very high. It remains to be seen if this will be acceptable to the government, which tends to treat its ownership in public sector enterprises as family jewels (By government I mean any government and not just the current one. This attitude of treating public sector enterprises as family jewels has cost the nation so much. But that is a topic for another time and another day).

One way to handle this would be to handover Air India to another airline or a company, at a nominal price, on the condition that they take over the debt. The Business Standard report quoted earlier points out: “Look at how the government in Malaysia sold the debt-ridden Air Asia to Tony Fernandes at just one ringgit, and he took over the debt. That has to be the approach because you are not going to make money for your disinvestment target through the Air India sale.” This makes tremendous sense, but given the family jewels point, I am not sure how realistic it is. Also, in this case, the government can retain some minority stake in the airline and if and when the airline starts to do well that stake can be encashed (Precisely like it did in case of Maruti).

4) Most importantly, what happens to all the employees of Air India. As per the 2015-2016, annual report of Air India, the airline had 19,285 employees (this does not include the people working for its subsidiaries). While, the airline seems have the right number of pilots and air crew, it is particularly bloated when it comes to maintenance and ticketing and sales divisions.

A December 2017 report in the Mint points out that the airline had 5,931 employees in its maintenance division and 4,221 employees in its ticketing and sales division. In comparison, Indigo, had 739 and 69 employees in these divisions, respectively.

It remains to be seen how does the government handle this. Any airline which wants to acquire Air India is not going to employ 4,221 employees in the ticketing and sales division.

That much is very clear.

So, what happens to these and other employees? “Various options are under consideration to protect the interests of the employees,” civil aviation secretary R N Choubey told PTI. Last week, minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinha had told CNBC TV18, “We will make every effort to protect Air India staff.”

In an answer to a Lok Sabha question, Sinha denied any plans to offer a voluntary retirement scheme to around 15,000 employees of Air India, before the disinvestment of the airline.

Handling the employees of Air India, will be the most significant challenge for the government in the run-up to the sale. In the past, when government owned airlines have been sold in other parts of the world, the number of employees working for the airline has come down considerably, for the airline to be viable for the firm buying it.

Once we consider all these factors, the privatisation of Air India will be a real challenge for the Modi government. I sincerely hope that they are able to push it through and the money thus saved is better spent somewhere else. Also, once Air India is privatised, the chances of the government getting out of many other businesses, will go up dramatically.

The column appeared originally on Equitymaster on January 15, 2018.

 

What You Pay For When You Pay for Fuel

narendra modi
The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi addressing the Nation on the occasion of 71st Independence Day from the ramparts of Red Fort, in Delhi on August 15, 2017.

Narendra Modi, took over as the prime minister of the country on May 26, 2014. On that day, the global price of the Indian basket of crude oil was $108.05 per barrel. Back then, one litre of petrol cost Rs 80 in Mumbai. Diesel in the city was being sold at Rs 65.21 per litre.

Three years have gone by since then and meanwhile, the global oil scenario has changed completely. On September 14, 2017, the price of Indian basket of crude oil was at $54.56 per barrel, around half of what it was when Modi took over as prime minister.

At Rs 79.5 per litre, the price of petrol in Mumbai as on September 14, 2017, in Mumbai, was more or less same as it was when Modi took over as prime minister. Diesel at Rs 62.46 per litre was slightly lower.

What is happening here? While, the price of crude oil has halved, the price of petrol and diesel, which are by-products of crude oil, continues to remain more or less the same (This argument may not hold all across the country, given that different states levy different taxes and different rates of taxes on petrol and diesel).

The gain because of fall in price of oil, has been captured majorly by the central government and the state governments, by increasing the different taxes that are levied on petrol and diesel. Lately, the commission given to pumps which sell petrol and diesel, has also gone up.

A small-scale industry has emerged lately, trying to defend the high taxes that consumers pay on petrol and diesel. Here are the arguments on offer:

a) India imports 80 per cent of the oil that it consumes. Given this, prices of petrol and diesel need to be high, in order to discourage people from consuming more and more of it. The assumption is that at lower price levels, people will consume more petrol and diesel.

b) We need to respect the environment. Petrol and diesel pollute the environment, and hence, taxes on petrol and diesel need to be high.

c) The high taxes on petrol and diesel have helped the government bring down its fiscal deficit without having to cut on its expenditure. This is something that is required in an economic environment where growth is slowing down and hence, government spending needs to be strong. Fiscal deficit is the difference between what a government earns and what it spends.

d) High taxes on petrol and diesel help the government earn enough money in order to fund the physical infrastructure that the country badly needs.

e) High petrol and diesel prices push demand towards more fuel-efficient cars. Also, by taxing petrol more than diesel, the government is ensuring that the private modes of transport (which largely use petrol) are taxed more than the public modes of transport (which use diesel).

f) The oil marketing companies need the flexibility to price their products on a day to day basis. It is this flexibility that reflects in the healthy valuations that their stocks currently enjoy in the stock market.

g) High taxes help the government finance the oil marketing companies which can then sell domestic cooking gas and kerosene at lower prices.

Each of these arguments is largely correct (I mean just because a small scale industry has emerged, doesn’t mean they are wrong) except for the last one. The subsidies on domestic cooking gas and kerosene are now down to around Rs 25,000 crore, which isn’t much in comparison to the petroleum subsidy of the past years. Hence, high taxes on petrol and diesel are clearly not required to fund the subsidy.

But there is one point that these economic commentators and analysts do not talk about. High taxes on the petrol and diesel makes the government lazy and helps it to continue favouring the status quo. Allow me to elaborate. It is worth remembering here that money is fungible. Just as high taxes on petrol and diesel allow the government to fund physical infrastructure, they also allow it to do a lot of other things that a government shouldn’t be doing. Let’s look at the points one by one:

a) Between 2010-2011 and 2015-2016, Air India has lost close to Rs. 35,000 crore, and yet it continues to be run. The losses are not surprising, given that the airline business is a very competitive business and the government clearly doesn’t have the wherewithal to run it. The question is where does the money to keep bankrolling Air India come from? The high taxes on petrol and diesel.
Lately, there has been talk of selling the airline. Let’s see, if and when that happens.

b) Or take the case of Hindustan Photo Films Manufacturing Company Ltd. It is the fourth largest loss-making company among the loss making public sector units. It made losses of Rs 2,528 crore in 2015-201 Between 2004-2005 and 2015-2016, the company has made losses of close to Rs 15,000 crore. As mentioned earlier in 2015-2016, the company lost Rs 2,528 crore. It employed 217 individuals. This meant a loss of Rs 11.65 crore per employee. Where does the money to run this company come from?

c) In total, high taxes on petrol and diesel allowed the government to run 78 loss making public sector enterprises in 2015-2016. Between 2011-2012 and 2015-2016, the loss making public sector enterprises have made losses of Rs 1,33,400 crore. Where is the money to finance these losses coming from?

d) Between 2009 and now, the government has spent roughly around Rs 1,50,000 crore, recapitalising public sector banks. The public sector banks have a humungous bad loans portfolio, as they keep writing off the bad loans, their shareholders’ equity keeps coming down and the government as the largest owner, needs to recapitalise them. Bad loans are essentially loans in which the repayment from a borrower has been due for 90 days or more. Take a look at Table 1.

Table 1:

 

 Gross non-performing advances ratio
Indian Overseas Bank24.99%
IDBI Ltd.23.45%
Central Bank of India19.55%
UCO Bank18.83%
Bank of Maharashtra18.00%
Dena Bank17.39%
United Bank of India16.56%
Oriental Bank of Commerce14.49%
Bank of India14.20%
Allahabad Bank13.72%
Punjab National Bank13.20%
Andhra Bank12.91%
Corporation Bank12.14%
Union Bank of India11.77%
Bank of Baroda11.15%
Punjab & Sind  Bank10.80%
Canara Bank10.00%

Source: Author calculations on Indian Banks’ Association data.
As on March 31, 2017.

Table 1 tells us that 17 public sector banks have a bad loans ratio of 10 per cent or high. This basically means that of every Rs 100 of loans that they have given, a tenth or more, is not being repaid. The government currently owns 21 banks, after the merger of the associate banks of State Bank of India and the Bhartiya Mahila Bank, with the State Bank of India.

Some of these banks like the Indian Overseas Bank are in a particularly bad state. This bank has a bad loans ratio of close to 25 per cent i.e. one fourth of its loans have been defaulted on.

Where is the money to keep these banks going, coming from? In a world where money wasn’t free flowing because of high taxes on petrol and diesel, banks like the Indian Overseas Bank, UCO Bank, United Bank of India, Dena Bank, etc., would have already been shutdown or perhaps been sold off. These banks are too small on the lending front to make any substantial difference to the total lending carried out by banks in India. But their losses do hurt the government a lot. Every extra rupee that goes towards funding these banks is taken away from something more important areas like education, health and agriculture.

e) Also, given the different taxes implemented by different states, the price of petrol and diesel tend to vary across the country. Take the case of the government of Maharashtra charging a drought cess of Rs 9 every time one litre of petrol is bought in the state. Why is this cess even there during a time when there is really no drought in the state? It is just an easy way for the government to raise money. Most people don’t even know that they are paying for something like this, every time they buy petrol.

Hence, to introduce a sense of equality among citizens living in different states, petrol and diesel need to be taxed under the GST (They are already a part of it, with zero percent tax rates).

The high taxes from petrol and diesel also helps the government to continue running many inefficient firms as well as banks. Any plan of closing down these firms and banks is likely to met with a lot resistance and also, lead to a lot of hungama (for the lack of a better word). Given this, it makes sense for the government to take the easy way out, maintain the status quo and continue running these firms and banks.

As Donald J Boudreaux writes in The Essential Hayek: “People’s intense focus on their interests as producers, and their relative inattention to their interests as consumers, leads to press for government policies that promote and protect the interests of producers.”

Any idea of shutting down or selling an inefficient public sector enterprise or banks, is likely to be met with a lot of protests from the employees as well as the trade unions representing them. The political parties are likely to join in. Hence, it is easy for the government to maintain the status quo and not make any difficult decisions.

But the money that goes towards keeping these individuals happy, is taken away from other areas like education, agriculture, health etc. People who lose out because of this, do not have the kind of representation that people working for government run firms have.

Of course, all this does not mean that there should be no taxes on petrol and diesel. With the right to govern comes the right to tax people. But these taxes should be at a reasonable level. Also, with lower taxes, people will spend more money on personal consumption and that will help economic growth. And the impact of people spending money, on economic growth, is always greater than that of the government.

To conclude, it is worth remembering that every coin has two sides, and it doesn’t always land up heads.

 

A slightly different version of this column appeared on Pragati on September 19, 2017.