The Consortium of Indian Petroleum Dealers (CIPD) expressed concern over the proposed daily revision of the retail prices of petrol and diesel by the Oil Marketing Companies (OMC) tentatively from June 16, as it claimed that the move was fraught with many risks in implementation.
It might spell trouble where filling stations are either not automated at all or when the automation is not fully functional. Incidentally, a majority of the filling stations are non-automated, and there are many other issues that should be sorted before going ahead with the ‘dynamic pricing’, which was said to be piloted in four cities, including Visakhapatnam, said CIPD Honorary General Secretary M. Narayana Prasad.
Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, he said revising fuel prices every day was not practical without the calibration of underground tanks also.
The move could cause losses to dealers as it is difficult to manually calculate the prices.
“It is a tricky thing for the consumers too to watch out for the daily update of prices”, he observed.
Less than 25 % of the filling stations have been partially upgraded with automation while the rest, particularly in remote areas, were being operated manually.
Mr. Prasad said fixing and communicating the prices to the filling stations every day would be another problem for OMC. He insisted on OMC taking the retail outlet dealers into confidence by sharing its experience during the pilot project, to do away with any shortcomings.
Working group
Mr. Prasad said OMC had to immediately set up a working group comprising their representatives, dealers and other stakeholders to take the new system forward.
A.P. Petroleum Dealers’ Federation President R. Gopalakrishna and Vice-President (Krishna-Guntur-Prakasam zone) P. Srinivas were present.
