Petrol pumps in Gujarat to curb timings in protest

Petroleum outlets will remain open only from 9 am to 5 pm for three days

Over 1,200 petrol and diesel pumps in Gujarat will embark on a three-day protest from Wednesday, against what they call an 'indifferent' behaviour on part of the petro retailing companies.

Pump owners contend that they have actually been receiving lesser petrol and diesel than what is actually being sent and that this has been going on for about 20 months now.

While all petroleum retail outlets will remain open only from 9 am to 5 pm for three days beginning Wednesday, the retail outlets will be shut indefinitely if the oil companies do not accept their demands.

The bone of contention is the practice followed in supplying petrol and diesel to the petrol pumps.

According to the Gujarat Petroleum Dealers' Association (GPDA), oil companies need to first transport petrol and diesel from Reliance's Jamnagar refinery to their respective depots and terminals and cool the petroleum products before despatching these to the petrol and diesel pumps. Instead, the association contends, the companies have directly been despatching oil tankers from the Reliance refinery to retail outlets.

According to GPDA, petrol or diesel is filled into a 12,000 litre capacity tanker at the refinery at a higher temperature and when this is offloaded directly at a retail outlet, at a much lower temperature, becomes condensed. "This results in a loss of around 200 litres for a retail outlet," said Shivlal Bhanderi, vice-president, GPDA.

He added that for the past 20 months or so, several letters have been written to the oil companies, explaining the problem and demanding that it be sorted out.

"In a bid to save the cost of transportation and storage, oil companies have directly been despatching petrol and diesel from the Jamnagar refinery to retail outlets. We have been demanding that they first store these in their depots and terminals and allow cooling to take place before these products are dispatched to retail outlets," Bhanderi said.

Of the 1,200-odd petroleum retail outlets in the state, about 500 are in the major cities, while remaining ones are on the highways and semi urban and rural areas. The association contends that a dealer ends up losing around Rs 8,000 per tanker in the process. Though a tanker remains sealed after it is loaded, but the volume decreases by the time it reaches the retail outlet, dealers say.

R Sareen, general manager, Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL), Gujarat, said, "The version of the dealers is not correct."