A group of petrol pump owners, who were planning to shut shop on Sundays, said on Saturday that they have deferred the plan.
It was on April 10 that the Consortium of Indian Petroleum Dealers (CIPD), which claims to have 25,000 members, asked its members to shut shop on Sundays starting from May 14, in line with the Prime Minister's vision of reducing fuel consumption. “We have been called by the government for a meeting in this regard on the coming Wednesday (May 17) in Mumbai. Hence, we have asked our retail outlets to stay open on Sunday,” A D Sathyanarayan, President, CIPD. CIPD has presence in states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Maharashtra.
The association cited a Mann ki Baat radio address by the Prime Minister as a trigger for its decision to shut petrol pumps on Sundays, in which Modi said fuel consumption as a major area where people can contribute to “new India”. “If every citizen resolves to obey traffic rules, if every citizen resolves that he will discharge his duties honestly, if every citizen resolves that he will not use petrol or diesel one day in a week – these are not very big things but these will contribute to the realisation of the dream of this country,” he said according to the media reports.
As per figures of March this year, India has 56,190 fuel retail outlets, out of which public sector majors like Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd has a combined network of 52,604 retail outlets. The private sector players in the sector are Shell, Reliance and Essar Oil. On a monthly basis, each of these outlets consume 170 kl of fuel.
The petroleum ministry had gone out in public against the association in a tweet, stating that “@PetroleumMin neither endorses nor approves of move by small section of dealers to keep their petrol pumps closed on Sundays. Such closure of petro pumps by a small section of dealers will lead to inconvenience to general public.”
