Fuel retail: Job half done

Transparent pricing regime should be the next step

In a major step towards further decontrol of the petroleum-marketing sector, the government announced recently that retail marketing of petrol and diesel — petrol pumps, for example, — would be open to any private sector applicant with a net worth of at least Rs 250 crore. Earlier, applicants had to commit to investing at least Rs 2,000 crore in the sector, which strictly limited the number of players. It is possible that now companies or conglomerates that do not want to invest in, say, refining will bring investments into the oil-marketing sector. Large organised retail chains can build petrol pumps