PSU oil cos may've to quit retail
They may have to divest their company-owned-company-operated petrol pumps to individual applicants from special categories. Biz Week In Pics | Weekend Platter
By Rajeev Jayaswal, ET Bureau |
NEW DELHI: Public sector oil marketing companies ��� Indian Oil Corp, HPCL and BPCL ��� may have to divest most of their company-owned-company-operated (COCO) petrol pumps to individual applicants from special categories. The government has asked oil PSUs to retain only a few prominent retail outlets for branding purpose and distribute the rest to eligible candidates including war widows, scheduled castes and scheduled tribe category applicants awaiting award of outlets under the corpus fund scheme.
A senior petroleum ministry official said the current practice of running COCOs through company officials was not a viable preposition. ���A very few selected number of outlets established on national highways or prominent positions developed on spacious land to project brand image of company need to be operated as permanent COCOs. Rest of the COCOs need to be distributed among pending letter of intent holders of corpus fund scheme beneficiaries as per their seniority,��� he said. Under the scheme, oil companies have to provide ready retail outlets with all basic facilities at their own cost to the shortlisted candidates from special categories.
���Permanent COCOs should be used for training of dealers and staff and for other promotional activities,��� he added. As on March 2008, oil companies have a total of 34,222 retail outlets, of which IOC is operating 17,642 stations. HPCL and BPCL have 8,329 and 8,251 petrol pumps, respectively.
There has been retail expansion activities by oil companies in the recent past. During the last three years, public sector oil companies opened 1,148 outlets on national highways in various states. Still, there are about 2,000 applications pending from these companies to open petrol pumps on national highways.
There is a long queue of allotment of petrol pump dealerships. Public sector oil marketing companies had allotted 4,084 petrol pumps to women candidates and 2,642 outlets to SC candidates between 2001 and 2007.
There are, however, 4,004 applications pending for the same period due to non-availability of land, litigation over eligibility issues and pending clearances from various authorities. In 2006, the ministry of petroleum & natural gas had issued broad guidelines on operation of COCO outlets and had advised IOC, BPCL and HPCL to frame their own guidelines.
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