Petrol Pumps In 22 States To Halt Fuel Buying Today, Demand Higher Commission

New Delhi: The petrol pump dealers' association will hold an agitation on Tuesday, May 31 to protest against no increase in their commission by the oil marketing companies and it will be called 'no purchase of petrol and diesel'.

However, the protest will most likely not disrupt supplies as fuel bunks have enough stocks to last for a few days.

Petrol Pump Dealers Association informed that its members which are spread across 22 states will participate in the protest.

"Though there was an agreement between oil companies and dealer associations that the dealer margins will be revised every six months, it has not been revised since 2017. The prices of fuel have almost doubled since 2017, hence the working capital in business has doubled leading to additional loans and bank interests thereupon," the association said in a statement.

Industry officials said that the petrol pumps do not require daily refills and their storage tanks store enough supplies to last for a few days.

"Evaporation losses have increased proportionately. Also, the overhead expenses like bank charges, electricity bills, salaries etc. have increased manifold during the last five years. Our constant demand to revise dealer commission has been overlooked by the OMCs (Oil Marketing Companies). By doing so, OMCs are making their own network financially unviable," the statement added.

Earlier, the central government provided some relief to the citizens of the country by reducing the prices of petrol and diesel through excise duty cut and this move had been appreciated by the dealer associations.

"However, these sudden cuts have led to huge financial loss to the dealers. The central government in the past six months has announced two major cuts in excise duty (on Nov 4, 2021 and on May 21, 2022), and the entire burden of Rs 13 per litre on petrol and Rs 16 per litre on diesel was passed on to the petrol pump dealers causing huge irrecoverable losses," it said.

It demanded an immediate increase in the dealers' commission.

The 22 states where the dealers will be in protest are Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Sikkim and North Bengal.

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