Gujarat petrol vends to levy own cess to recoup losses

GANDHINAGAR - Petrol vends in Gujarat have decided to levy a surcharge of 15 paise per litre on petrol and 10 paise per litre on diesel on their own from April 5 to make up for the losses suffered in unloading fuel from tankers which is often less than officially accepted levels.

A spokesperson of the Gujarat Petrol Dealers Association, representing over 600 such outlets in the state, said here Monday this decision was taken after more than four years of representation to oil companies and the central government failed to yield any results.

The outlet owners say that oil companies accept a deficit of 60 litres of the fuel in a tankerload of 10,000 litres, but when tankers are unloaded at the retail outlet the deficit actually comes to about 100 litres.

Similarly in diesel, 20 litres is officially permitted per tankerload, but often the shortfall is about 50 litres.

“This entails a loss of between Rs.3,000 to Rs.5,000 per tankerload. We have requested that tanker filling be done during the cooler part of the day between 6 to 8 a.m in the morning but to no avail. There has been no effort to reduce this deficit despite repeated representations and therefore this decision”, the spokesman said.