BPCL starts rationing fuel supplies

As crude oil prices keep soaring and the Centre refuses to bail out public sector oil marketing companies, which are under tremendous strain, the oil crisis has literally reached your neighbourhood gas station. Vehicle owners can no longer be sure that petrol or diesel will be available on demand. Beginning Tuesday, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited has put its petrol pumps across the country on a "rationed" supply. BPCL has adopted the drastic system because of a severe cash crunch for buying oil products. Other oil majors like as HPCL and IOC too are facing a cash crunch given the government's refusal to allow an increase in retail prices, which has been in the offing several times in the last few months. Amarjit Singh, vice-president of the Petro Dealers' Association in Mumbai, said that BPCL petrol-pump owners were informed on Tuesday that every dealer would receive only a limited quota every month. "Every petrol dealer will receive petrol/diesel equivalent to the sale that was done in the same period last year. For instance, my pump sold around 80 kilolitres in May last year. I will receive a similar quantity or less this month," he said. In effect, this means that if a dealer exhausts his quota within, say, 25 days, due to the growing demand for petrol from the ever-growing automobile sector, he has to down the shutter for the remaining days of the month. The company has told dealers that the move is only aimed at extending the available products for a longer duration.

A high-ranking BPCL official, requesting anonymity, confirmed that rationing has been done across the country and would, in effect, be initially for four to five months or less if the issue of payment is resolved earlier. HPCL officials refused to comment while IOC's N Srikumar said: "There is no quota from our end and there is no such move from our end." Singh said the petrol dealers had proposed to BPCL that they would keep the petrol pumps open only for a limited period every day. "Some of us are open till late at night or all 24 hours.

We have proposed that the petrol pumps will be open only from 7am to 10pm every day. It does not make sense to work longer hours if we are going to run out of petrol before the month-end and have to shut shop." The government, he said, must act soon as it is a very difficult situation.