Oil Companies Firm On Penalties As Dealers Call For Strike On October 13

India's three biggest state-run oil marketers refused to roll back penalties against malpractices in sale of petrol and diesel at fuel stations even as dealer unions called a day-long strike on Friday.

The disciplinary issues are in the interest of customers and are not negotiable, BS Canth, director (marketing) at Indian Oil Corporation Ltd., told BloombergQuint, signalling there will be no further negotiations regarding any change in the guidelines.

The marketing discipline guidelines provide for a penalty of up to Rs 2 lakh on pumps that manipulate the quantity of fuel sold to customers or switch to the manual mode or tamper with the system without informing the companies. Dealers found violating the guidelines thrice will lose their licence.

About 22,400 of a total of 56,000 fuel retail outlets in India have been automated. “The remaining will be automated by December 2018,” said Canth.

Other guidelines include minimum wages for employees to be fixed by the companies and clean toilets for public use at all fuel pumps. The four main amendments came into effect from October 2.

Dealers have termed these arbitrary and unjustified, wire agency PTI reported. They called a 24-hour closure of outlets from October 12 midnight.

In the event of a strike, customers can buy fuel from the 1,000-company operated retail outlets, said Canth.

Around 500 dealers across India have so far assured that their outlets would remain open, S Jeyakrishnan, director (marketing) at Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd, said at a joint press conference held by the three oil marketers, including the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd.