'No Purchase' protest: Petrol pump dealers across 24 states to not buy fuel from oil companies tomorrow

Petrol pump dealers across 24 states have decided not to purchase diesel and petrol from oil companies on Tuesday to mark their protest against dealers` commission which has not been revised since long, it was announced on Monday.

Around 70,000 outlets across 24 states will not buy fuel from oil marketing companies.

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"Dealers across 24 states will join `No Purchase Petrol and Diesel` campaign tomorrow to highlight the financial distress of the petrol pump owners across the country," Delhi Petrol Dealers Association President Anurag Narayan.

At a media briefing by the Petrol Pump Dealers Association, he said that the campaign to not purchase fuel from oil companies on Tuesday will be taken over the non-increase of dealer margins over the past 5 years and the issues with losses incurred from excise duty revisions by the government.

The dealers association claimed that there was an agreement between OMCs and the dealers association that the dealers` margins will be revised every six months, but this has not been done since 2017.

The prices of fuel have almost doubled since 2017, hence the working capital in business has also doubled leading to additional loans and bank interest and the evaporation losses have also increased proportionately, it said.

"The dealer commission is essentially a reimbursement of our expenses like salaries, electricity bills, and others which have increased manifold during the last five years. Our demand is to revise dealer commission which has been overlooked by OMCs," said Narayan.

The association demanded that the losses on account of excise reduction should be reimbursed by the OMCs and future price change should happen in line with Dynamic Pricing Mechanism.

"A mechanism should be in place to isolate dealers from excise duty changes. Dealers should not make profit due to increase in excise duty, neither should they be burdened with loss due to reduction," it demanded.

The 24 states where dealers will join the protest are Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Sikkim, the North Bengal Dealers Association, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh.