People across Maharashtra will have no petrol pump to turn to Sunday, with the owners of 3,500 petrol outlets deciding to have a “holiday” on that day to press their various demands, including a hike in dealers’ margin.
Beginning from Monday, petrol pumps in the State will work in a day shift from 9 am to 6 pm. Of the total petrol pumps, 250 outlets will remain closed in Mumbai on Sunday and work in day shifts from Monday.
Announcing this, Federation of All Maharashtra Petrol Dealers Association (FAMPEDA) President Uday lodh said here on Thursday: “We are observing a holiday and work in single shifts from Monday to demand among other things our various demands, including a hike in dealer margins which were not revised since 2011. 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”.
According to lodh, the petrol pumps are not able to pay minimum salary to their employees because of low operating margins.
“Our decision will directly affect the livelihood of around 100,000 staffers at the petrol pumps in the state who work mostly in two or in three shifts depending on the location. A weekly holiday plus working in a single shift on other days would help the petrol sumps to drastically reduce their running expenditure,” lodh said.
A beginning was made on Wednesday with petrol pumps refusing to buy fresh stocks from OMCs with nearly 85 percent response by the dealers.
“However, there are apprehensions that weekly holiday coupled with a single-shift operations could lead to long queues at all times of the day at petrol pumps in major cities like Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, Aurangabad, etc,” lodh said.
Other than Maharashtra, the petrol pumps in other States also planning to implement a similar working schedule in States like Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Haryana which had announced a similar move on April 18.
There are around nearly 55,000 petrol bunks across the country, with majority operational between 6 am-10 pm, and rest working round-the-clock.
“The monthly sale of petroleum products is in the range of 130 kl per month in India. The Sunday-holiday move could entail savings of around 20 percent fuel burned in the country,” a petrol bunk owner said..