4,500 petrol pumps in Maharashtra to be affected by new move

Mumbai, April 18 (IANS) In a significant move, petrol pumps in eight states including Maharashtra will remain shut on Sundays from May 14 and work only on a single day shift, 9 a.m.-6 p.m., from May 15. The move will affect 4,500 petrol pumps in Maharashtra, including 225 in Mumbai, a top official said here on Wednesday.

Federation of All Maharashtra Petrol Dealers Association (FAMPEDA) President Uday Lodh said the move will be implemented in support of its various demands with the Oil Marketing Companies and other long-pending issues.

"We are currently operating on extremely low margins, selling high-tech unleaded petrol-diesel products in which the evaporation rate is very high, resulting in huge losses, besides several other major issues," Lodh told IANS.

Additionally, there are areas of concern like a certain amount of minimum salary to be paid to the staffers at each petrol pump, which has become unaffordable due to the low operating margins, he said.

Lodh said the move will affect around 4,500 petrol pumps in Maharashtra, including 225 in Mumbai, where some 100,000 staffers work, mostly in two shifts, and some in three shifts - depending on the location.

A weekly holiday plus working in a single shift on other days will help the petrol pumps to drastically reduce their running expenditure, he added.

However, it could also result in massive queues at all times of the day at petrol pumps in major cities like Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, Aurangabad, etc.

Besides Maharashtra, the other states where petrol pumps are planning to implement a similar working schedule include Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Haryana.

Though Lodh declined to speculate the daily figure of losses in view of the new work schedules likely to be implemented, he said the monthly sale of petroleum products is in the range of 130 kl per month in India.