[sustran] poverty alleviation and basic mobility

[Paul Barter]

Dear sustran-discuss participants

There have been some interesting postings on this issue of poverty
alleviation and transport.  A news item caught my eye today which relates
to this. The report mentions the ongoing controversy in India over
proposals to raise the prices of petroleum products. It seems that
subsidies to keep oil prices low are costing the government a lot and it
now wants to raise the prices.  This might seem to be very good for green
transport.  However most of the parties on the left are vehemently opposing
the price rises. Their argument is that the "poor have to be spared any
further financial burden".  This kind of issue has also arisen recently in
a number of other countries that I know of, for example the Philippines,
Indonesia, Nigeria, Venezuela, etc.

My questions:
Has anyone heard of any solid information on what actually are the impacts
on very low income people of such a price rise in petroleum products?

Is subsidised fuel in low income countries good or bad for social equity?

I understand that in the Indian context a big issue is the price of cooking
fuel (kerosene?) and the fact that if this fuel becomes unaffordable it
would result in great hardship and much tree-cutting for fuel wood. Are
there viable methods to raise fuel prices for vehicular fuel but not for
cooking fuel?  Or is there too much interchangability to make this possible
(ie. are they the same fuels) ?

It seems sad that much of the money which is spent on subsidising fuel with
the aim of helping the very poor may actually be going into subsidising the
rich to drive their private vehicles greater and greater distances? Is this
an accurate comment or am I mistaken??

Is the argument that inflation will be triggered by fuel price rises (and
thus further hurt the poor) a valid argument?

Have any countries successfully raised fuel prices but at the same time
protected the poor from the impacts of the change??

Are there other dimensions to the debate which I am not aware of?

Best wishes,

A. Rahman Paul Barter
Sustainable Transport Action Network for Asia & the Pacific (SUSTRAN)
>From 19 May until 15 July I am in Perth, Australia.
During that time please reach me at <barter at central.murdoch.edu.au>

PS. I am having a problem accessing my KL e-mail <tkpb at barter.pc.my>. If
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<barter at central.mudoch.edu.au>.