Efforts are on, on a war footing to bring all pumps under automation.
PSU Oil Companies IOC, HPCL and BPCL are all geared up to start another historic initiative to provide petroleum products like Petrol and Diesel on the real time basis as far as their pricing is concerned. From 16th June all the pumps across the country would dispense these fuels on dynamic pricing basis where, price would change everyday as per the crude price movement in the international market. Importantly these companies have undertaken a pilot in 5 cities and started everyday pricing mechanism since May 1. As per top HPCL source this pilot was quite successful and proved to be beneficial for customers in a big way, as it has done away with all the volatility in pricing from the petroleum products.
Interestingly from 16th onwards the pump prices of petrol and diesel PSU companies will move on the real time basis and prices of private oil marketers Reliance and Essar also move in tandem with them. Trade and the customers would both benefit from daily price change, as the rude shocks of large price change in some fortnights would become a thing of the past.
Just to quote an example, as per the present system of fortnightly price change, on 16th April 2017, the New Delhi petrol price went up by Rs. 1.78 per litre, which had obviously caused unease to many customers. On the other hand under the new system, the price change would have been much smaller, maybe 10 to 15 paise per litre, which would be more comfortable to customers.
HPCL source informed that price of products is related to their average international product prices in the fortnight gone by and also USD to Indian Rupee exchange rate. So now onwards, except on occasions such as elections, the fortnightly price change has become a norm.On the other hand dealers are not amused by government’s decision and has given a call for an all India one day ‘no purchase no sale’ strike on 16th to protest this new price change schedule.
When we enquired then dealer representatives said that it is not easy for them to change the price manually every midnight, since the owner himself will have to be present to supervise his staff and double-check the updated price.
There is another side to this tale. “Around 20% of the petrol pumps are linked to their centralized automation, and there, there is no challenge as the daily price change can be pushed easily into the dispensing units, at the stroke of midnight,” informs HPCL source. Considering this solution lies in making all the pumps centrally automated. “Daily price mechanism is no doubt a challenge to dealers, since a number of dealers of petrol pumps, which are not automated, are still manually changing the price in the dispensing units whenever required, informed HPCL official. “Efforts are on, on a war footing to bring all such petrol pumps under automation,” he added.
Though there is no logic behind the perception that dealer would suffer financial loss in everyday price mechanism when prices go down every day, as the same dealers would gain when the daily price trend was upward. All the companies are planning to undertake awareness campaign for dealers across the country to allay all their doubts. Already this has been started on 13 June.
There is no denying the fact that dealers will have to run their business with more efficient staff for daily price change in the dispensing units and it may require higher wages, but the dealer would benefit in the long term as such staff are likely to handle their customers well which would benefit the dealer.
Also, under fortnightly price change many customers faced problems getting petrol when serpentine queues formed at petrol pumps instantly, on market rumour of large price increase on the next day. Such queues would now be passé.
Trade expert feel that consumers are likely to get used to the daily price change of petrol and diesel, which will be no different from the daily differing retail price of many other consumer items purchased by them such as fish, vegetables, fruits etc.,
