Can the government still afford to keep fuel prices unchanged?

With elections now out of the way, the government is staring at some hard economic decisions. And the most sensitive is that of increasing fuel prices at the pump. India is the only major oil importing country to have not raised prices through the West Asia crisis but that now appears economically unsustainable.

Why? Because the government was relying so far on geopolitical calls over the length of the conflict. A fair assumption was that with a ceasefire announced, some sort of deal will be worked out, the Strait of Hormuz will open and the prices will fall. But the script hasn’t worked out that way.