Pump prices are so high in India that some of the gasoline and diesel exported to neighboring countries is being smuggled back through porous land borders. A tanker loaded with 1,360 liters of diesel that was being smuggled to India, where pump prices are at a record, was held last week in Nepal, the police said in a statement.
“Smuggling has become rampant as prices are cheaper in Nepal because of tax differentiation,” said Ravi Bharti, who operates a gas station at Adapur in eastern India’s Bihar state, less than 2 miles from the Nepal border. “This is severely impacting our sales.”
While the increase in pump rates is the result of a sharp recovery in the prices of global crude oil, taxes have remained stubbornly high, making up closer to 60% of what consumers pay in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan have been fending off criticism by shifting the blame for high prices on previous governments and production cuts by some oil exporting nations.