Fuel station owners seek financial aid for loss due to cut in excise duty
PATNA: Petroleum dealers in Bihar are seeking compensation for their losses incurred due to cut in central excise duty twice in the last six months, and will submit a representation to the oil marketing companies (OMCs) on Wednesday, said Brijendra Kumar, general secretary of the Bihar Petroleum Dealers Association (BPDA).
As per BPDA estimates, the consolidated loss of petroleum dealers in the state was ₹90 crore, given that there are around 3,000 petrol pumps in Bihar, and every petrol pump suffered a loss of an average ₹3 lakh due to cut in central excise duty on May 22, said Kumar.
The loss due to revision in November last year was even higher, he added.
Patna district alone accounts for nearly 250 petrol pumps.
“Losses in some big retail outlets ranged between ₹10 lakh and ₹20 lakh due to cut in central excise duty on May 22, reducing prices on petrol by ₹8.99 per litre and diesel by ₹7.02 per litre,” said Kumar.
“The loss has been heavy since all petrol pumps had sufficient stock of fuel available with them when the price cut was announced in the afternoon. Being Saturday, the timing of the cut was bad for us because all petroleum dealers had replenish their supplies as OMCs do not do refill fuel on Sunday, and had stock enough to last the next two-three days,” he added.
Kumar said the dealers would request the OMCs to compensate them for the unutilised stock available with them post-revision in fuel prices on the day the government announced a cut in excise duty. “Alternatively, the OMCs can even compensate us for the purchase done at the unrevised rate,” he added.
“We welcome the cut in excise duty. However, in future, we will also request the government to reduce oil prices by some paise per day, in proportion to the increase in price, so that we can absorb the shock and reduce our losses,” said Kumar.
The BPDA will submit representation, seeking compensation to the oil marketing companies, including the Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) at their regional offices in Patna on Wednesday, he said.
We have also decided to hold protests in front of the regional offices of the three OMCs on Wednesday.
“We will first give a formal representation to OMCs, seeking compensation for our losses. We will decide our future course of action if they do not agree to our request,” said Kumar.
Though Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had on Sunday hinted at the possibility of a cut in VAT on petroleum products after the Central government slashed excise duty on petrol and diesel, a formal announcement is awaited.
The Centre’s announcement to slash the excise duty on May 22 had brought down petrol price to ₹107.24 per litre in Patna as against ₹116.23 a day ago. Similarly, diesel price had dropped to ₹94.04 as against ₹101.06, which was ₹7.02 less than a day ago. “In November last year also, we suffered heavy losses after the state reduced VAT on petrol by ₹2.06 and ₹2.01 on diesel following the Centre’s decision to slash excise duty by ₹5.83 and ₹11.87 per litre on petrol and diesel, respectively,” said Kumar.