M Veerappa Moily is a man on a mission. Though it’s another matter that half the time Moily himself is unsure about the nature and merit of his mission, the union petroleum minister is a politician who fits the pre-liberalisation 1980s’ billing better any other colleague of Manmohan Singh in his cabinet.

As the lord of a ministry that inadvertently does a lot to make the sort-of slim public exchequer go on crash diets in periodic bursts, the man means good: he wants to save money. So he comes up with ideas that socialist leaders of the 80s would have trademarked: rationing, followed by austerity, followed by campaigns to dive home both points.

First, he said petrol pump timings could be “8 am to 8 pm or something like that” as an austerity measure to check the demand, and thereby the need to import oil. “We are still working on it. It may not be implemented on the highways though. Such measures are already in place in many other countries," he was quoted as saying in an Indian Express report on September 1.

Next, he proposed to stagger office timings of sarkari employees to reduce traffic (ergo wastage) and encourage people to use public transport since the buses, suburban trains and other means would look less like cans of packed sardines in the odd, off-peak hours (ergo contain use of private cars; ergo cut oil demand). “I have written to the minister of state for personnel, public grievances and pensions, asking him to consider ‘staggered office timings’ for government offices, which will help in decongesting road traffic during peak hours," he said at a press conference on September 24.

The latest wave from Moily’s brain is the ‘bus day’. As part of it, he would take public transport (either the Metro or bus) to office each Wednesday, starting October 9, to save fuel (ergo public money). “I have told chief ministers, central ministers and PSU heads to declare one day of the week as ‘bus day’ and encourage their staff to utilise only public transport for their daily commute,” he told the media on September 27. “I will also take the Metro train or bus to work every Wednesday starting from October 9.”

All nice, if implemented. Just three posers:

* Mr Moily, at the same press conferences, you announced getting in the likes of Virat Kohli and Saina Nehwal to publicise the oil ministry’s ‘save oil’ campaign. Would they work for free?

* You also announced, "Every year the Petroleum Conservation Research Association (under the oil ministry) does an awareness campaign for a fortnight at a cost of Rs 20 crore. This year we will do a mega campaign at more than double the cost.” That’s upward of Rs 40 crore for 14-15 days, or upward of Rs 2.5 crore every day. Spend more to save more? How is the exchequer gaining from your ‘bus days’ (provided it does gain) because the first two proposals are nonstarters any which way?

* Even if your security detail takes other means of transport (as a Business Standard report says they will), the very fact that you will step on a Metro train means the Delhi Metro system on your route would remain chaotic at rush hours, prompting many Metro regulars to take alternate transports (auto-rickshaws; even own vehicles). How does it help anyone at the end of the day?