With a petrol price hike expected on March 31, the Federation of All India Petroleum Traders has threatened that if the increase happens without considering dealers’ margin, it will go on an indefinite agitation.

Mr Ajay Bansal, General Secretary, FAIPT, said that all the 40,000 petrol pump dealers will start a nation-wide agitation to press their demands by ‘No Sale No Purchase’ from April 23 midnight.

The dealers want the Petroleum Ministry to fully implement the recommendations of its committee, and increase the dealers’ margin by a minimum Re 0.16 a litre on petrol and about Re 0.60 a litre on diesel.

Dealers in India are getting Rs 1.49 a litre on petrol and Rs 0.91 a litre for diesel as fixed margin. Whereas the dealers in neighbouring countries are getting much better commission on percentage basis. Dealers in Nepal are getting 3 per cent, in Pakistan 4 per cent and in Sri Lanka 5 per cent on the sale price.

He said that every increase in price hurts the dealers because on one hand their evaporation and cost of handling losses increase in the same proportion as the cost of product price.

On the other hand, their investment in the business goes up thereby raising the interest burden on increased working capital, he said.

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