Indian Oil's outlets start dispensing cash in rural areas of West Bengal

KOLKATA: Indian Oil's retail outlets in rural West Bengal have started dispensing cash, the company said in a statement. Currently, the facility is available at 56 outlets in the state, but by November 19th, more than 150 outlets across interior Bengal would start dispensing cash, it said.

Public sector oil companies — Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) — in association with State Bank of India (SBI), have come forward to ease some problem regarding availability of currencies for day-to-day transactions post demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes.

At present, the outlets are using their own cash for offering cash withdrawal facilities to customers, but SBI would start supplying money to oil companies soon. Senior officials of IOCL, BPCL and HPCL, met Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairman, State Bank of India, on Friday. It has been decided that an amount up to Rs 2000 per day per person can be dispensed in cash against swiping of debit card from select petrol pumps where Point of Sale (POS) machines of SBI are already available.


POS machines are the machines which are generally used for debit or credit card transactions. It has been decided to start this facility at around 2500 petrol pumps spread across the country including rural areas, where SBI POS machines are already there. The oil industry is also in further discussions with SBI and other banks to extend this facility to over 20,000 petrol pumps gradually. The facility will be available even after November 24, 2016.

At present petrol pumps have been accepting currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 and will continue to do so till November 24, 2016.