The confusion over the Sri Lankan Supreme Court (SC) judgement on petrol price reduction that prompted the Lankan Indian Oil corporation (LIOC) to bring down costs without the others following suit has ended with the Indian company also raising prices to the original level.
The failure of the state owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) to act in consonance with the LIOC vis--vis the SC judgement meant that the petrol users thronged the Indian petrol filling stations to take advantage of the lower prices.
As a result the petrol filling stations of Lanka IOC, a subsidiary of Indian Oil Corporation, were going dry following huge off take after it decided to reduce petrol prices by around 18 per cent even as the government debated the surprise order.
On the other hand, some members of the CPC union were up in arms against the stalemate and said the company was registering huge losses due to steep dip in sale of petrol from its outlets.
"We promptly implemented the SC order for reducing petrol prices to Rs 100 a litre but the order said it was conditional on reduction of excise and customs duty on the fuel which has not happened so far," Managing Director Sri Lanka Indian Oil Corporation Suresh Kumar told PTI.
Kumar said after paying the unchanged rate of duties even for the latest round of oil purchases despite implementing the SC order LIOC decided to raise the prices back to Rs 122 a litre from December 24 midnight.
The LIOC managing director said for four days the petrol from the Indian company's outlets were being sold for Rs 100 a litre but with the court order's not getting implemented, it decided to revert to the old price.
