Petrol bunks black out for 15 minutes

Chennai:

 Pressing ahead with their demand for better margins, thousands of petrol bunks across Tamil Nadu and Puducherry began their protests in a novel manner, by switching off lights at the fuel stations for 15 minutes on Wednesday night.

According to the dealers, the State-owned Oil Marketing firms failed to disburse the margin based on investment in land and other infrastructure as recommended by Apoorva Chandra Committee report since 2010, leading to a situation where each of them have lakhs pending as arrear from the company. With their repeated demands failing to evoke any positive response, the association representing them have announced a series of protests, which began with the lights-off protest today.

“The next step,” said KP Murali, president of Tamil Nadu Petroleum Dealers Association, “is to not buy petrol and diesel on November 3 and 4.” Both being working days, it could lead to a shortage which would in turn have a crippling effect on transport sector and common man if the association goes ahead with the plan.

During the protest today, as many as 4,700 petrol bunks in the State and the neighbouring Union Territory went dark for 15 minutes. Dealers, who are now getting Rs 2.42 and Rs 1.52 as margin per litre of petrol and diesel, have been demanding the implementation of the committee report which had suggested fixing of margin based on the investment in land and other infrastructure by them.

As per the report, they should be paid Rs 2 for sale of a litre of diesel and Rs 3 per litre of petrol.

“They have not paid the promised dealer margin from 2010, which works out to Rs 35 lakh for every dealer who sold more than 1.7 lakh litres of petroleum products,” he said. On the other hand, the mushrooming of private petrol bunks after the deregulation of oil prices, too, have affected the sale margin, he added.

Factfile:

Price of Petrol without taxes/ Commission: Rs 27.91

Central Taxes:                             Rs 21.99

State taxes                                Rs 14.13

Dealer Commission                          Rs 2.42

Total                                      Rs 66.45

Price of Diesel without taxes/ Commission: Rs 27.79

Central Taxes:                             Rs 17.85

State taxes                                Rs 8.20

Dealer Commission                          Rs 1.54

Total                                      Rs 55.38

Sale of Petrol (Thousand Metric Tonnes)

Tamil Nadu: 2,052.1

Southern states: 6719.2

All India: 21,846.4

Sale of High speed Diesel (Thousand Metric Tonnes)

Tamil Nadu: 6311.8

Southern states: 21315.6

All India: 74,590.2

Oil Industry retail outlets:

Tamil Nadu: 4702

South India: 15,935

All India: 56,190

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