Quite a few petrol bunks have displayed `no stock’ boards in Hyderabad and elsewhere in the past few days with the withdrawal of credit facility on offtake of bulk fuel from depots of oil marketing companies.
HPCL and BPCL have completely withdrawn credit facility
But IOC had given five days to make payment after lifting stocks since March. The norm had pushed the retail dealers to the wall as some of them had liquidity issues in immediate payments. To add to their woes, the recent excise duty cut on petrol and diesel had burnt a hole in the pockets of dealers.
On the day of duty cut, the dealers had buffer stock of petrol and diesel which they had to sell at reduced prices. The dealer commission of ₹3 a litre on petrol and ₹2 on diesel was also not enhanced for the last five years.
In this background, the dealers demanded the Central government to bear their loss on account of purchasing fuel with high excise duty and selling the same at lower rate following the duty cut. The dealers, therefore, gave a call not to lift stocks from depots of the companies on May 31.
