Many outlets belonging to Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited have reportedly started to ration the sale of both petrol and diesel. And it is learnt the outlets belonging to Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), may also follow suit in the next few days.
But the pump owners confirm that the common man will not face any problem, as the oil marketing companies (OMCs) have reportedly instructed the outlets to ration or stop the supply to bulk purchasers such as APSRTC and industries.
A fuel pump owner said that the OMCs were already making a loss to the tune of ₹28 per litre on diesel and ₹8 on petrol. The Russia-Ukraine war has seriously impacted the crude oil prices and they have gone up abnormally, he said.
Because of this, the OMCs have increased the price per litre for industries by about 25%. Earlier, many industries used to buy fuel in bulk, including APSRTC, from the OMCs directly, but now owing to the increase in the rate by about 25%, they have shifted to the retail dealers, a few petrol pump owners say.
“If the retail price of diesel is around ₹106 a litre, the hiked price by OMCs for industries and public transport organisations is around ₹130-plus. This has forced them to move to us and this has depleted our stock drastically, and that is why we have been told to ration our supply, so that common man is not affected,” said the owner of a BPCL petrol outlet in Visakhapatnam.
Targets
The targets for retail outlets are fixed on the total sales figure ending March every year. The supply for the next year has been increased by 30% to 50%, based on last year's sales. But all of a sudden, the bulk purchase by industries and APSRTC had sunk our stock and that is why the OMCs have asked us to ration it, he said.
However, senior officials from HPCL said that there was shortage of stock and supply would continue to the dealers and common man would not be affected.
