‘No purchase’ by petrol pump dealers on Tuesday to demand higher commission

New Delhi, May 30

A petrol pump dealers’ association will on Tuesday resort to ‘no purchase of petrol and diesel’ in protest against no increase in their commission by the oil marketing companies, but the protest is unlikely to disrupt supplies as fuel bunks have enough stocks to last couple of days.

Petrol Pump Dealers Association said its members in 22 states will join 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 petrol pumps don’t need daily refills and their storage tanks store enough supplies to last couple of 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 said.

Dealer associations welcomed the relief given to citizens of the country by the central government in reducing prices of petrol and diesel through excise duty cut.

“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 increase in dealers’ commission immediately.

The 22 states where the dealers will be on 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.