Nagpur: All Petroleum dealers of of nationalized companies like IOC and HP running petrol pumps have gone on a No-Purchase strike for two days from today. It will continue for tomorrow.. It entails no purchase of petrol, diesel and oil also for two days.
Most petrol pump owners have kept adequate stocks of petrol and diesel to ensure that they do not run dry and customers do not face problems even tomorrow. They have appealed to people to not panic and resort to over-buying.
If the meetings that are scheduled to discuss their demands in both Delhi and Mumbai tomorrow do not bear fruit, the weekend will see pumps remaining shut on 2nd and 4th Saturdays and Sundays also. Before that, petrol pumps will begun operating from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Motorists are requested to fill petrol accordingly.
CNG stations on petrol pump premises too will follow these timings and bank holidays.
A notice to this effect was given by various associations at a press meet held two weeks ago, but the Petroleum companies and Ministry has paid no heed till now. Thus they were forced to make good their threat of going in for no-purchase for two days beginning today.
As Vice President of Vidarbha Dealers Associaton, Vilas Salpekar said their most important demand remains an increase in their commissions from Petroleum Companies which remains at an old and unrealistic level. They are insisting that Apoorva Chandra Committee report, filed and accepted by the Ministry of Petroleum, but not implemented should be accepted in toto and acted upon.
Another problem is the mixing of 10% Ethanol which leads to losses for pump owners.
There are 4,500 petrol pumps across the state, of which 2,500 are on highways. Even these highway pumps will follow restricted timings.
“We want to make it clear that this is not a ‘strike’ as such but an attempt to cut our losses and making working of petrol pumps viable” said Ravi Shinde, President of the Association in Mumbai.
All pumps throughout the country have been suffering losses for the last two years. They have shared their problems and their issues many times in the past and were about to embark on a national ‘strike’ in 2015 itself but were convinced to call it off with false promises.
