New Delhi:?The government is considering partial rollback of market price of diesel sold to bulk users like road transport buses because those sales have dipped, oil secretary Vivek Rae said on Thursday.
The January 2013 decision to ask bulk users of diesel like the railways and defence to pay market price, which is about Rs 10 a litre more than petrol pump rates, had led to protests from several state transport utilities.
They have now resorted to sending buses to retail outlets for refuelling instead of buying from oil company depots. “The objective of differential pricing (subsidised rates for petrol pumps users and market price for bulk consumers) is not being met. We have seen queueing of buses at petrol pumps, leading to congestions and fuel wastage,” he said, on the sidelines of a Petrotech pre-event conference here.
With state road transport buses — classified as bulk users — going to petrol pumps, and oil companies setting up refuelling depots in their premises, bulk diesel sales have dropped.
“We are considering partial rollback of the bulk diesel pricing order,” he said. If approved, the state road transport corporations will get diesel at subsidised rates (equal to petrol pump price) while other bulk users will buy fuel at market price.
