Automated system on fuel price rings in, pump owners upset

State-owned fuel retailers IOC, BPCL and HPCL have put in place an automated system to implement daily revision in petrol and diesel prices from June 16 even as a section of petrol pump dealers threatened to go on strike against the move.

The daily change in prices of petrol and diesel across the country follows the success of a pilot implementation in five cities. "This move will ensure that the benefit of even the smallest change in international oil prices can be passed down the line to the dealers and the end users," Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the nation's largest fuel retailer, said in a statement.

IOC said the seamless execution of the 40-day pilot in Chandigarh, Jamshedpur, Puducherry, Udaipur, and Vishakhapatnam has reassured all stakeholders on the efficacy of its implementation.

Federation of All India Petroleum Traders (FAIPT),which claims to represent most of nation's 54,000 petrol stations, said there will be "no purchase no sale" of petrol and diesel on June 16 in protest against the decision.

"Dealers of five cities where it was launched have already burnt their fingers. They are crying at the inventory loss that they have already suffered due the fluctuations in the daily changing prices on the inventory held by them," it said in a statement.

FAIPT said 50 per cent of petrol pumps sells on average 30 kilolitre of fuel per month. "One tank lorry of 18 Kls lasts most of such small dealers 7 to 10 days. Any such decision shall wipe out his entire working capital if the prices were to go down frequently," it said.

Also, there are dealerships where a tank lorry takes two to three days to reach the petrol pump and in such cases there is a strong possibility that by the time the tank lorry reaches the retail outlet its price might have already reduced leaving the dealer to suffer losses.

"Extensive training of dealers will be held to ensure that customers do not face any pricing misinformation or glitches," IOC said adding all its over 26,000 dealers will be given timely information on the effective prices at a pre- designated time say 20:00 hrs for the next day.

At a large number of IOC's 10,000 automated fuel stations, daily price can be automatically updated centrally, besides technology also provides to schedule the price change at midnight.

At the non-automated petrol pumps, dealers would get the updated price by way of four distinct means: customised SMSs, e-mails, mobile app and web portal for dealers.