IOC seeks to allay petrol dealers' fears of loss from dynamic pricing

State-run Indian oil Corp (IOC) on Tuesday sought to reassure private petroleum dealers on their concerns about inventory loss due to the daily revision of transport fuel prices to be implemented across the country from June 16, even as the Delhi Petrol Dealers Association said it will join the protest closure of pumps called by other associations for Friday.

Dynamic fuel pricing, or daily revision of retail selling prices (RSP), has already been implemented on a pilot basis in Udaipur, Jamshedpur, Visakhapatnam, Chandigarh and Puducherry from May 1.

"The fear of dealers about inventory loss is unwarranted as the change of prices will happen both upwards as well as downwards, and thus both gain and loss would compensate each other," IOC said in a release here.

"The pilot implementation in five cities has demonstrated that the Indian market is ready for the change. The study in 5 cities has shown that customers have accepted the DPR in right earnest," it said.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Petrol Dealers Association said on Tuesday that it will join the "No Purchase No Sale" call given by the Federation of all India Petroleum Traders (FAIPT) for Friday, when the countrywide dynamic fuel pricing is due to start.

The Delhi dealers' body said the automation system installed by oil companies at most of the pumps in the capital are "not supporting the automatic price change in the dispensing machine".

"Unless the price is pushed automatically through the automation system the petrol dealers are not ready to do it manually or fetch the price on a daily basis as being advised by the oil marketing companies.

"This manual intervention can lead to errors and delays in operation of the petrol pump," it said.

"A very stringent fine of Rs 5 lakh and suspension of sales and supplies for 60 days has been implemented in the amended guidelines for not operating the petrol pump in the automation mode, or making automation dysfunctional, partly of fully," the statement said.

"It is nothing but contradiction in terms that OMCs on one hand want us to manually feed the data and on the other want us to run the outlet 100 per cent in the automation mode, with a sword of the new guidelines always hanging on our heads," it added.

--IANS

bc/vd