Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh seems heading for a serious shortage of diesel and petrol as oil marketing companies like BPCL are imposing ration in fuel supply while HPCL stopped releasing its stocks on credit basis to petroleum traders. Small-capacity pumps are already dry in several areas.
Though the BPCL has been at it for the last few days and several fuel stations faced short supply as a result, fresh trouble came when HPCL stopped supply on credit basis. This even though the latter charges nearly 18 per cent interest on credit. It wants traders to pay the money in advance in order to release fresh stocks.
Traders say they are deeply troubled by these situations. They have difficulty filling up their tanks at the fuel stations.
They have appealed to the state government to write off additional VAT of Rs 4 and road cess of Rs 1 on each litre of petrol and diesel so that there can be a dip in their prices.
“There is a major difference in the prices to the tune of `6 per litre for both petrol and diesel between AP and neighbouring states, like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Telangana. Hence, a large number of consumers from border areas are going to these states to fill their vehicle tanks," they say.
State-owned oil marketing companies like BPCL, HPC, IOC say they are incurring a loss of nearly `8 per litre on petrol and `25 per litre on diesel and that they can no longer bear with such a loss.
So with petroleum traders who say their dealer margin of Rs 1.88 on diesel per litre and Rs 3.15 on petrol per litre is no longer remunerative as these rates have not been revised for several years. They are seeking an upward revision of the dealer margin and do not want any share in routine revision of fuel prices either upward or downward.
Meanwhile, shortage of fuels is evident in rural areas where small fuel stations having the facility for storing small quantums of fuels are getting dried up. Such a scenario may spread to other parts of the state soon unless both the Centre and the state government take action to solve the issue.
President of the AP federation of petroleum dealers Gopalakrishna said, “We want the Centre to force oil marketing firms (OMCs) to do dynamic pricing of fuels and help them overcome their losses. We also appeal to the AP government to withdraw the additional VAT and road cess to give some relief in the form of a dip in fuel price to the consumers.”
Petroleum dealers met BJP national president JP Nadda and sought his intervention. They urged him to arrange a meeting with the petroleum minister to resolve the issues.
On an average, seven lakh to eight lakh litres of diesel and 4.5 lakh litres of petrol are being consumed in AP per day.
