(PTI)
Private fuel retailers like Rosneft-owned Essar Oil and Reliance Industries have doubled their market share in last three years, capturing close to 7 percent of petrol sales and over 8 percent of diesel sales. Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, in a written reply to a question put to him in the Lok Sabha, said private companies were allowed to sell petrol and diesel in March 2002. From April 2002, fuel pricing was also deregulated.
Consequently, Reliance, Essar and Shell set up petrol pumps to directly compete with public sector giants like Indian Oil Corp (IOC). In the initial years, private firms were aggressive in setting up of petrol pumps. However, they slowed down once government control over pricing came back in vogue in 2004-05, and they couldn’t compete with subsidised fuel sold by PSUs. The government freed petrol price from its control in June 2010 and the same for diesel was done in October 2014, giving fillip to fuel retailing by private firms.
