Daily fuel price revision can pump up disputes
Neither government nor the oil company has machinery for daily revision of fuel prices
Uncertainty prevails over daily pricing of fuel in the state from June 16 as a majority of petrol dispensers are not automated. The daily revision applies to all petrol pumps irrespective of whether they are owned by private dealers or oil marketing companies.
Over half the petrol pumps do not have automated fuel dispensers, which is a requisite for daily revision.
In the absence of automated dispensers, price revision has to be done manually and there is a chance of irregularities if prices are not revised any day in case of downward revision.
Moreover, either the government or the oil marketing company has no machinery to monitor whether fuel prices were being revised every day or not especially in districts and rural areas, where the automated fuel dispensers are almost negligible.
There are nearly 500 petrol pumps in the GHMC limits, of which 40 per cent are automated. There are 2,300 petrol pumps, of which just 20 per cent are automated all over the state.
The petrol pump dealers initially threatened to go on strike from June 16 against daily revision but backtracked after they could not reach consensus.
“We are not against daily revision. Our concern is that it should not be partially implemented. It should be implemented only after 100 per cent automation of petrol pumps. This initiative will be successful only then. If human intervention takes place in price revision, it would give scope for irregularities. Ultimately, the consumers will suffer,” said Mr Rajiv Amaram, president, Telangana Petroleum Dealers’ Association.
The legal metrology department, which comes under civil supplies department, too is not equipped to monitor daily price revision in hundreds of pumps in case of irregularities.
In case of downward revision of prices, if dealers do not change manually even for few hours on any given day in non-automated pumps, they can make a lot of money and consumers will be suffer losses.
The up-to-date revision in semi-urban and rural areas is a major concern, where there is least monitoring by civil supplies department or OMCs.